The Long and Winding Road

    A woman stands at baggage claim ripping into a new Marlboro carton, waiting for her suitcase. A couple stands kissing on the moving sidewalk, oblivious to the rest of the travelers and, to be perfectly honest, lucky they didn't get an elbowing from me as I scraped by them. I'm back in Paris, if it weren't obvious enough.

     

     I spent just under a month back at home in Minnesota and it was as glorious as I predicted. After arriving home sans luggage (Lost at Schiphol Airport) and sans 40-euro bottle of duty-free wine I specially bought for our Christmas dinner (Confiscated at Schiphol Airport), I spent my days: sleeping till the afternoon, nourishing myself with Nordeast, frosting, root beer, oreos, bagels and peanut butter, driving cars, researching my family ancestry, watching Netflix until 3 AM every night (New Girl, Blackfish, The Shining and a feeble attempt at The Hunger Games before I lost interest), reading non-school material (On the Map: Why the World Looks the Way it Does by Simon Garfield), going to concerts, playing the piano, shopping, gambling, trying out new restaurants, getting a new phone to replace my stolen iPhone, skiing for the first time in ten years with my sister and realizing my lessons served me well from back in the day and spending lots of time with my favorite Minnesotans. But, alas, there are only so many days a person can go without putting on real clothes and not feel like they're at the Overlook Hotel. I walked around the house shouting "REDRUM!" whenever my mom had her back turned.

     

     Goodbyes are hard, especially because I won't be home again until at least September. But it was time to finish up this master's degree and continue living my Paris dreams or whatever, so I left. I have a long road ahead of me.

Part One of my January video

     For someone who loves traveling, I sort of hate it. I mean, the act of traveling...well, it sucks. No matter what, I can guarantee at least several of these will happen: I won't sleep more than twenty minutes on any flight, I'll get stuck next to the baby that cries louder than it normally would just to punish the rest of us for not having kids, I'll have no room overhead for my carry-on, so under my legs it goes, my flight will be delayed, airport security will dig through my meticulously-packed bags despite complying with all the rules (Especially at Shithole Schiphol Airport) or my ears won't pop and I'll start whimpering in agony to myself for the last fifteen minutes. Or if none of the above happen, I'll have a unique situation like on Sunday when I got to my apartment and my landlady locked me out (long story) and I was so jetlagged that I tried sleeping in my hallway against my door until she got home three hours later.

     But I made it. I'm in Paris. Everything is fine and I'm not flying again for over a month. 

     To backtrack quite a bit, December was a blur. My friend Ashley from high school managed to fly out from Boston to visit for a weekend and I had a great time introducing her to Paris and to Europe in-between my classes that I couldn't skip and conference calls she had to make because she technically didn't take any time off from work. I made her walk till her feet were borderline sprained and barked at her to get off my futon, stop being jetlagged and go out, because you don't waste your three days in Paris being tired. (You just don't, Ashley.) Being cold-weather natives at heart, we sat outside with a blanket for dinner in the Place du Tertre and drank wine on the Quai des Grands Augustins, as well as hitting the obvious spots like the Louvre, the top of Notre-Dame, the Champs-Elysées and the Eiffel Tower (though she wouldn't climb it). It's a great thing to have an old friend in this big city.

Ashley & I in the Place des Vosges

     The rest of the month was devoted to school. I had an awful cold for a week or two that had me going through a box of tissues a day and coughing so badly my ribs hurt. Basically I kissed any and every social invitation goodbye and hunkered down in my chambre de bonne until everything that I had procrastinated on got unprocrastinated. In the process of writing close to forty pages in a week, I was missing the simpler days of the low-stress classes of my study abroad semester and the driving passion I had for my French degree that I don't have for translation. If any college students are reading this, you need to realize your finals could be a lot worse. You could be a graduate student.

    Today, the official start of my last semester of school ever (I will not be doing a Ph.D. Do not let me think that's a good idea. It's not.) and I woke up early as I always do at the beginning. I felt daunted by the work ahead of me listed on my syllabi and doubted whether I can do this as I always do at the beginning. The RER B was bursting at the seams during the morning rush hour. I drank copious amounts of coffee and admired the beautifully overcast sky sheathing the Eiffel Tower in fog. I bought a book for class, Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau, from Brian at The Abbey Bookshop, my favorite bookstore in Paris because he always gives me free coffee, sometimes with maple syrup (He's Canadian), and genuinely loves helping me find what I need. I imagine The Abbey is what Shakespeare & Co. once was before the tourists found it. 

     I took a long way home to avoid the RER B, taking the boulevard Saint-Michel to rue Monsieur le Prince and the Place de l'Odéon and winding through the nearly-empty Jardin du Luxembourg. The green metal chairs were all empty, a rare sight in the warmer months. January is a wonderful time in Paris because you feel like it's yours. It's not even very cold, despite all the complaining Californians and Parisians with very limited cold tolerances.

My last first day of school picture ever.

Foggy day in the Luxembourg Gardens

The pruned trees in winter always remind me of the vines in Sleeping Beauty.

rue Herschel

rue Michelet

     So as I start the new year, what did 2013 mean for me? It was probably my biggest year yet. I worked my ass off applying for graduate school, got in and spent months working on paperwork which included a visit to Chicago, somehow graduated from college with Latin honors, said goodbye to my little companion Ribby, and moved back to the city that makes me so, so happy. Moving here is the hardest thing I've ever done (so much more so than my semester in college) but I've somehow gotten this far. I try to view it like this: if you're going to do something hard, you might as well do it where you want to. I don't want to have regrets of what could have been.

What Grad School in France Has Taught Me

1. You can't get everywhere in thirty minutes or less. In fact, you can't get most places in thirty minutes or less, even though Mary-Kate and Ashley taught me I could travel 9,000 miles to Transylvania in "about twenty minutes."

2. You can't procrastinate like you did back in college. I'm finally learning that starting a research paper two days before it's due is really, really stupid.

3. The Eiffel Tower is really distracting. So is people-watching from my window, Deezer, Pinterest and old Britney Spears videos on YouTube circa 2001.

4. When a professor assigns you five books to read for the semester, you read them ASAP. You shouldn't read other books for fun.

5. You absolutely cannot skip class. Period. I think back on the days when I could Ferris Bueller-it in Montmartre during my study abroad semester and no one cared. That was such sweet freedom.

5. Google Calendar is sometimes the only thing keeping my life intact. I'm holding on for dear life.

6. Sleep can be the most fun part of the day. 

7. Saturdays, and even Fridays, are legitimate study days. For the first time in my life, any weekend day is now fair game to get things done.

8. Chocolate and wine is sometimes a meal. After spending most of my life with a certain nonchalance toward chocolate, I've recently realized that everyone's right. It's pretty good. And it sometimes replaces meals when I don't want to go get real groceries.

9. Doing your master's in France before you're 26 is really smart. In a word, discounts. I can get into any national museum for free and get reduced prices on a lot of things.

10. Doing your master's in France before you're 26 makes you the youngest. Everyone else has time to figure out their lives for a bit longer than me. When people ask what I was doing before this               career-wise, I have nothing to say. I'm the eternal underdog.

11. Wine and croissants will never let you down, but the RER will. My frown has been turned upside down so many times thanks to them.

12. Coffee is everything. 

13. Grad school in one year instead of two means everything is overly intense. Good luck trying to hold down a job on top of it.

14. Grad school in one year instead of two is a relief. I probably wouldn't be doing this at all if it were two.

15. Be really passionate about what you choose to study. It's so much harder if you're not.


     But the main thing I've learned from Paris is that you don't have to do what everyone else is doing. Let everyone else live up to those underlying expectations for what your twenties are supposed to be. I'm having a great time doing what I truly want to do.

Love,
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

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     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

When September Ends

Check out my video collage of September, most of which is shaky iPhone footage. YAY.

     I don't think it really hits you how fast time goes by until you routinely scan your Navigo métro card in the morning over the reader on the turnstile and it unexpectedly flashes a red 'X' with a loud blaring sound. It means another month has gone by and you need to shell out the €65 to pay for a new monthly pass. It's October, y'all.

     I realize I don't ever write about school, which is funny because didn't I come here for that? My daily routine involves me waking up, extremely tired to the point of absolute dread of getting out of my bed, wasting time around my apartment and realizing that I haven't left early enough for my thirty-five minute commute to school. I rush out the door, never completely satisfied with my outfit (Everyone's more stylish than me) or my homework (Everyone's more studious than me) and just hoping that I didn't forget anything up in my room because going back up my stairs is just not in the cards. Once I walk down the boulevard Saint-Michel to the Luxembourg station, I take the crowded, stinking RER B train one stop to Saint-Michel, where I catch the RER C train for three peaceful stops to Pont de l'Alma.

     I'm always late for class. Always. My "campus" (Which doesn't exist in the American sense) is a group of buildings relatively spread out throughout the seventh, and I spend the whole time walking to each one formulating excuses as to why I'm late. I always blame the RER for having issues if I'm asked.

     Then I have classes and work (In the writing lab as a tutor) until about 5 or 6 PM each day, with the exception of Wednesdays, when I have class until 8. During any and all breaks, I'm usually curating my Google Calendar and email, eating croissants, madeleines and sandwichs jambon-fromage and drinking vending machine coffee.

     When I'm done with everything for the day, I always feel like Wow, I live in Paris. I can go do anything I want to! and then pull out my map to go somewhere, but I usually just end up heading home. I tell myself I'll go running in the Jardin du Luxembourg, too, but then I go buy a baguette and a bottle of wine and forget about it.

     As for my actual classes, they're all pretty fantastic, but hard. I can't tell you how nice it is to be taking classes you want to take instead of generals in college. For the most part, I take too many notes, which is weird. It's weird to like what you're studying because you spend so much of your education complaining about it all. I'm realizing that translation isn't really just looking up words and writing them down. It's actually a really tedious and grueling process. Today, I met with Anne-Marie, my official directed study advisor, to go over my first translation of Philippe d'Iribarne's sociological article La force des cultures. I thought I did a pretty good job on the first few pages and that translating was coming so naturally and quickly for me. No. Everything was wrong.

     On a different note, Paris is really expensive. Like really expensive. I reluctantly spent a bit of time at Franprix and Monoprix today and was astounded when I started really looking at prices of random things, like €13 for nail polish and €18 for a basic towel.  A pint of Guinness at a bar runs at upwards of €9. It's painful. And remember, you need to multiply by at least 1.3 to get dollars. Everyone seems to manage just fine because they're all out at cafés and brasseries all day long, while I drink my instant coffee and one-euro wine with a side of baguette. I don't even know how people can afford their cigarettes, but they sure do somehow because Paris is essentially just one really big, beautiful ashtray. I, on the other hand, feel like I'm about one Navigo away from pulling up a chunk of sidewalk next to a homeless man with an Amsterdam beer in one hand and a J'ai faim SVP cardboard sign in the other (Which isn't really all that different than what the bouquinistes do, if you think about it.). I guess Paris is not really designed for the American dollar or young adult.

On to October!

Rachel

Montparnasse-Bienvenüe station

Home

Meeting up with Amelia, another Central alum, at Le Pure Café near Charonne in the 11th

Shakespeare & Company

Canadian expat bookstore, The Abbey Bookshop, in the Latin Quarter. It's a hot mess, but that's how I like my bookstores.

Musée du Louvre

Versailles 

Versailles

Versailles

Tartelette aux fraises at the Eiffel Tower in between classes

Two of my favorite things: boulangeries and cats

Before Sunset

"Can I learn to look at things with clear, fresh eyes? How much can I take in at a single glance? Can the grooves of old mental habits be effaced? This is what I'm trying to discover. The fact that I have to look after myself keeps me mentally alert all the time and I find that I am developing a new elasticity of mind. I have become accustomed to only having to think, will, give orders and dictate, but now I have to occupy myself with the rate of exchange, changing money, paying bills, taking notes and writing with my own hand." 

-Goethe, 11 September 1786

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     When I leave a week in-between posts, it feels like there's too much to say. In Minnesota, I can go weeks without anything notable happening, but even a day in Paris is so saturated that when my head hits the pillow I can't even remember waking up that morning. I can't commit to anything with anyone without first consulting my Google Calendar. I feel scattered.

     I know I'm definitely learning how to be independent much more this time than last time, even though last time really kicked my ass (in a good way). I've had to get my whole life set up (phone, bank account, rent, internet, etc.) without anyone helping me and usually not in English, either. This is the first time I've ever lived completely alone before. It's no longer, "Hey, whose turn is it to buy toilet paper?" but instead, "Okay, how am I going to tell my landlord that my pipe burst in the kitchen?"(Luckily for me, water started leaking through my landlord's ceiling, so she knew about it and thus I didn't have to figure that one out.)

     Maybe I've been so busy because the weather's so nice and I don't want to spend any time inside. Last week, I was convinced that summer was over and we were already doomed for a seven-month stretch of cold, continuous rain. But then the sun came out and the scarves came off. Well, off anyone non-French, anyway. In my observations, I've come to the conclusion that Parisians only experience one season: cold. It can be seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit and they still refuse to remove their wool scarves and fur-lined coats. I've been wearing jeans just to be polite, but I'd be much more comfortable in shorts like any reasonable Minnesotan would. When I don't wear a jacket, they look at me like funny. Same goes for when I smile in public. Anyway, it's so beautiful that I was struck by how gorgeous the light was streaming through the windows at McDonald's on boulevard St-Michel at sunset today. And then I felt stupid because it was McDonald's. 

     One night last week, I sat in the empty square in front of Saint-Sulpice, my favorite Parisian church, staring at its golden façade and I realized I want to start doing sketches again. It makes me so happy to just sit and observe and listen to the fountains. It's nice to not be in a constant state of mild anger over things like people who think it's okay to flâner in the métro or cough in your face and instead do something that doesn't require any thinking.

      On Saturday, I spent time sitting in one of the green metal chairs in the Jardin du Luxembourg watching, listening and sketching with my watercolor markers. A French girl approached me, asking "Qu'est-ce que vous faites ? Est-ce que je peux regarder ?" She told me she came to draw, too, and that my drawing of the palais was beautiful. She left and I sat there for a long time with the sun warming my face and I thought if I had to live in the Jardin du Luxembourg for the rest of my life, I could be happy. I'm not sure why that would ever be a legitimate situation, though. (Sidenote: I can make watercolor postcards. If you want me to make you one, send me your address.)

Jardin du Luxembourg

Jardin du Luxembourg

Jardin du Luxembourg

The Medici Fountain, Jardin du Luxembourg

     One of my favorite leisure activities is to browse the bouquinistes, which almost always takes me to the Pont des Arts. Even though Romantic Paris is starting to really annoy me, I still like reading the locks to see where they came from. On late Saturday afternoon just before sunset, there was a brother duo playing a set of their own music and a few American covers (Watch it here) and you wouldn't have guessed from a distance that they were actually good since a swarming group of girls usually doesn't hint at greatness. They mentioned an upcoming show of theirs, but I could only hear "October" and "frères." I actually Googled "Octobre concert Paris frères musique" but that didn't direct me to anything. I still have one of their songs in my head.

Pont des Arts

Pont des Arts

Pont des Arts

     I covered most of the sixth on foot, which I never would've done last year since I was such a métro enthusiast. I really couldn't see the forest for the trees. I had no concept of how the city is connected. For example, I had no idea that the Montparnasse Cemetery is right next to Raspail or how close I used to live to avenue du Maine. None. On Sunday, I went down to the fourteenth to find a Monoprix or Franprix that would be open in the morning and I ended up walking all over my old stomping grounds. Simply put, the fourteenth is my jam. For real. I literally walked down the street with a huge smile on my face before realizing I was in Paris and shouldn't do that. I love how real it feels when I'm there and I feel like I fit in. My new neighborhood in the sixth is mainly upper-class and the traffic on the boulevard St-Michel is a constant roar in the background. In the fourteenth, I can actually hear my feet hit the ground and it's beautiful.

     

One of my goals this year is to find someone to take me for a ride.

Cour du Commerce Saint-André

Institut Hongrois on rue Bonaparte

Jardin du Luxembourg

Jardin du Luxembourg

View of the Tour Montparnasse near home

      I went with my new friend Rebecca to a French-English "meet-up" at Café du Châtelet in the first, where a big group of French speakers and English speakers hang out, have a beer and do trivia. Each time it was a new round we had to speak only in one language. It's really, really strange and absurd to hear French people struggle to speak in English to each other. My team was three Parisians, a grad student from UW-Madison, an Indian man who lives in Spain (and spoke no English or French) and a Swedish man. We ended up winning the whole game and got free shots. We stayed long after it was over, analyzing life to death as they do in Paris. This is part of why I came here; where would I be able to meet so many different people at home? It puts your life into perspective when you realize the world is so much bigger than the United States. That's the cross-cultural studies degree talking.This wasn't the only time, either: On Friday, Rebecca and I hung out with people from Israel, Mexico, Switzerland, Spain and France (And their eighteen-year-old tabby cat and I fell in love), and last night I talked about my favorite books at Shakespeare and Company with a guy my age from Luxembourg and an older, seriously snobby man from Boston who was quoting entire passages of Gatsby to me just because he could and acting like he personally knew Henry James and James Joyce.

     Here are more pictures of the past week. I realize I almost never talk about school, which is why I'm here in the first place, I guess. Another time.

Rachel

RER at Port-Royal

Picnicking on my balcony/terrace

Musée de l'Orangerie

Braved the lines for their famed hot chocolate, which outshined their terrible service.

I finally got down to the quai to drink wine. There is really not much better than that.

The staircase in an art studio we wandered into in the first. Some of the craziest stuff I've ever seen.

Pub Quiz Night at the Highlander and trying to reform a winning team.