shout outs

to the youngest cashier at the franprix- i would rather not wait for you to finish your text message before buying my dinner. thanks.

to the shoe cobbler- where are you located? i really need you. i'd like to start wearing my camel boots again.

to the workers at Le Laurier restaurant- i really appreciate the vegetarian plate you always make for me. really.

to the night watchmen- thank you for maintaining the most boring job in the world to keep me safe. sorry about that one time i woke you up at 4am [it was a fun night though]

to the homeless man with two puppies- yes, you have sparked pity. no, you should not own animals when you cannot even feed yourself.

to my language professor- THANK YOU.

to the cell phone company- i'd like it if the service worked all the time, not just part of the time.

to deloitte- thank you for offering me an internship. i am so excited.

to mom and dad- twenty days!

to baguettes- could you please include more grains?

to europe- thank you for being so generous with student discounts. free is the only way to go.

to the ukrainian girl in class- if you dont put a smile on your face next week, i might just start to cry. also, next time your sick, please stay home.

to baudelaire- i hope your work sells for more than the predicted value at the auction tomorrow.

to my jeans- please stop shrinking every time i wash you. it always makes the first three hours of wearing you quite detrimental to my self image.

to père noël- all i want for christmas is my family and a pair of boots

to seattle- i still have not bought an umbrella. going strong.

to everyone who thinks they own the sidewalk and therefore don't need to even move an inch to let me pass by- i dont fancy walking in the streets with the crazy drivers just so you can swing your bag and chat spaciously.

to gonzaga- i envy not your upcoming snowstorms.

to ella- please please PLEASE jump in the suitcase and visit me.

to trader joes- you should go international. ie, paris.

to coca-cola zero- im becoming addicted to you. this must stop.

to the economists- why is everyone telling me that the pound has dropped to the value of the euro? why does every site i check tell me otherwise, that it is just as horribly $1=1.65£ as always???

joyeux thanksgiving

reflecting back on all the thanksgivings i have had, this one is definitely memorable- for reasons quite untypical. there was no turkey, but that itself has not changed since last year, due to the whole veggie thing. but this time, i did not even see- not even smell- a turkey. nor did i see the pumpkin pie, the mashed potatoes, or any celebratory drinks. i ate what i think was cous cous, as well as bread, a celery/corn salad, an orange, and some sort of citrus fluff. welcome to france. did i mention i ate in the company of two british girls? let alone surrounded by people from france and who knows where else in the world. i think this thanksgiving is one for the books. or at least for this blog.

i also had to go to school today! gasp! en plus, i had to work! [and unfortunately eleanor decided to misbehave- great timing. she doesnt get to go on my what-i-am-thankful-for list, unfortunately. not until she stops refusing to hold my hand when we cross the street.]

this completely flabbergasted me today: i saw the same woman on the metro whom i saw on monday. i know. i mean really though! what are the chances? thats never happened before, that ive noticed. considering that the trains leave every 2-5 minutes, and each train has about 8 cars, what are the chances that i was on exactly the same train and in the same cabin as her twice in a week?! i would have introduced myself to her and attempted to make a friend, but alas, the reason that i knew it was her was because she has two incredibly misbehaved boys...and yet doesnt seem to notice. not friend material. on monday, another woman sitting in the same little group of four seats as the mother and her two sons got so fed up with their misbehaving that she got up, mumbling about how the children were 'savages' and how the mom didnt know how to control her sons. she was completely right. the whole thing was quite entertaining.

i did some walking today [like every day] but tried this time to make some more connections in my brain as to what road links to what. its great when i can figure my way to a destination without looking at a map- or just peeking once. but really! i feel like i am close to conquering the left bank of paris. there is a whole other semester to conquer the right bank, thank god. that one is even bigger. i better get started early.

i was in a couple of used book stores today, and came to a somewhat depressing and yet cool situation. most interesting novels in french bookstores are translations from english, most often an american author specifically. this is depressing because i was looking to read a real french novel, not a translated one. this is cool because...GO America! the creativity is absolutely flowing from our country! [the english-french translators must be busy! potential job??] but i will keep looking for a true french novel. although the french dont fancy writing novels and mysteries, im sure i can find a couple that merit my eager eyes.

i was told by my kind old french conversation instructor that i speak without an accent! whoohoo! if thats not progress, i dont know what is. probably my proudest moment yet.

its raining like seattle here. but cooler. because its not seattle; its PARIS.

foreign exhaustion

it's just tiring existing sometimes. ive been realizing more and more that sometimes, i get tired because the whole day, i'm...listening. of course speaking, too. but even if i was prohibited to speak a word of french, i would still be listening to it. all day. and it wears on you! constantly thinking in a foreign language is not at all the same as the automatic english thoughts ive been contentedly having for the past twenty [nineteen? eighteen? when did i start thinking in english?] years.

of course, i could be feeling a bit tired lately due to all of the explorations. what i have done in the past 2 weeks:

museums-
Musee Rodin
Centre George Pompidou
Musee du Quai Branley
Musee Ganne, Barbizon

historic sites-
Chateau de Vincennes
St. Denis Basilica
Chateau de Fontainebleau
Barbizon
La Grande Arche/La Defense

good eats-
Laduree [macarons]
Pierre Hermé [more macarons]
Angelina [hot chocolate to die for]
nutella crepes [not anything unusual, BUT it was at this little stand, around 1am, where hannah and i got 2 for 1 because i told the guy it was her birthday the night before. score! so glad we finally got something free out of her birthday!

odd but great situations-
-teaching a 6-year-old french girl [eleanore] how to read in french. never thought i would be doing that.
-having a conversation about US economics with three men- one french, one italian, one turkish.
-giving a young french woman and her child instructions to get to the Luxembourg gardens. way to go, steph!
-receiving a call in which i get an offer to my top-choice internship, at 11pm, as im getting ready for bed!
-soirée on a boat- basically a big dance party with 100euro champagne bottles. ALL american/english music. ALL. and i dont think anyone else spoke english as a first language, if at all. but whatever. fun experience, to do once. didnt buy the champagne. did eat the free candy.
-biking through the former hunting grounds of Fontainebleau Forest, from Chateau de Fontainebleau to Barbizon. Probably one of my favorite adventures ever.
-going to the French International film festival for the Environment. I love film festivals. i love free things. THIS WAS FANTASTIC. ive seen 3 movies so far. i finally saw Food, Inc. which i had wanted to see for months back home, but never got around to it. so seeing it in france with french subtitles and for free...lets just say it was worth the wait. i also saw 'la ville au futur,' a french film about numbers and technology and how we are all being watched and all the underground systems in paris. it was cool because afterward, there was a Q/A session with the director and producer and, well, the audience didnt hesitate to critique their work! it was very academic of me.

so yeah, its a lot! especially with classes and work. there is only so much museuming one can do in a certain number of hours. best of all, everything ive visited is free! i should write a book- "frugal paris."

i dont know what to narrow-in on for this post. so much has happened, and ive been horrible at blogging because i havent had reliable internet. for some reason, the french do not see internet on the same level as air and water, as the US does. its really quite frustrating.

i have thought of some other names for this blog that i could have chosen, equally as accurate as the current name:

une année sans...
-a hairdryer
-really good music
-the gym
-home-cooked meals
-The Office
-the dollar
-cereal

im sure more will come up. for now, those are the ones that affect me most. [seriously though- no hairdryer! impressive, if you ask me.]

but first, let's trouve* it on the map

the above title my a direct quote, and serves as a bon example of a common mistake when speaking english in france: the incorporation of french vocabulary into english. i also find myself phrasing sentences 'french-style.' for example, i might find myself saying 'that is missed by me' for 'i miss that,' due to the french way of saying that you miss something, which is completely backward [ma maison me manque=i miss my house]. anyway. good times.

marseille was what kept me away from this blog last week, as hannah, kelley, and i trecked down to southern france for a week of 75 degree weather and smelly streets. it was great. a wonderful escape from the city [well the smelly streets are universal, but everything else was a nice change.]

we stayed in a hostel in marseille, on a tiny sketch street without a clear marking of the address nor the name of the hostel itself. fortunately we are college students and therefore had the intuition to look more closely next to each door, and were able trouver [*to find] the teensy-weensy name of the hostel written on a in-need-of-polishing plaque. is that right? plaque? or is that the french word? both? i dont even know anymore. but anyway, we thought we would be in the company of 9 others, as the website said it was a 12-bedroom space, but no, it was just us and julia, a spanish girl who was living there until she got a flat,

julia: she didnt speak french and barely understood english-always making this HEHHH??? sound when she didnt understand us and causing us to act out in detail everything we did- kelley making the mountain sign, me pretending to hike, and hannah almost yelling 'HIKING!!' [it really is easier to speak louder instead of just more clearly when someone understands you not AH ...when someone doesn't understand you. silly french phrasing.] and she smelled, like what i dont know.

but thats not really important, since we spent only the hours of sleeping and showering in the hostel- usually 9pm-730am. we wasted no time with late nights, it was all about the early mornings so we could spend the most time possible everywhere we went. it was great.

highlights:

monday: hiking the calanques. pictures describe it much better than words.

tuesday: aix-en-provence. farmer's market=adorable.



wednesday: cassis. nudist beach


thursday: avignon. hanging out in a town that is encircled completely by a very old wall could never be dull! pope's palace [palais des papes.]



friday: marseille. chateau d'if- where the count of monte cristo is based. so freakin sweet.


i have to give a shout out to mom and dad, for all the vacations we have ever been on. because this, as my first real vacation on my own in europe [or anywhere really], has shown me how freaking cher [expensive] it is. oh my. even when we went to grocery stores and i [the ultimate frugal shopper] would get 2euro rice things, inevitably, i would somehow manage to spend spend spend! if only we could just not eat for a week. that would have made my wallet a little happier.

so where to next? the travel bug has fully taken over my body. and europe is just hanging out waiting for me with open arms. italy and greece? poland and hungary? ireland, scotland, and england? morocco, spain, and portugal? the choice is hard. and takes forever. like that was my yesterday from after lunch until dinner. if anyone would like to plan my vacations for me, you know how to contact me.

halloween was nothing worth talking about. but ill mention it anyway. exhausted from traveling home the night before, i was not up for a wild night, especially because everyone in france had already celebrated- its all about oct 30th over here. so hannah and i shared some red wine while reflecting on our voyage and planning new ones. then i went to bed around midnight. SO WILD! oh well. i didnt have a costume anyway.

i have begun to hide my walls. in each city of southern france, i took as many colorful fliers at each tourist office as i could, and then spent a good couple hours putting the 'posters' on my wall. its a little crooked [character!] but its much better than white walls. however, it is annoying when the pictures fall down. i am using brown packaging tape, because thats all i have, and its just not the best in combination with the not-so-adhesive walls. oh well. [adds more character?] it will just be a never-ending project to maintain it. but what else have i got to focus on? with only 15 credits, a job, extra french groups, reading harry potter, seeing all of europe and taking a dance class, what else am i gonna do with my time? thats like half of the schedule im used to. [more on the dance class later- for now, lets just say its harder to learn weird dance moves in another language.]

oh! mashed potatoes here should be called 'salt with a side of creamed potato paste.' at least at the foyer. dont try it. you might finish the bottle of water after one bite, and then proceed to feel full, yet completely unsatisfied, for the next hour, when you realize that youre starving. im not going to form my opinion on french cuisine based on what is served at the dorm. or else i might just have to go home and eat at the COG. and we all know thats just out of the question.

plus tard,

stephanie