Au Debut
I’m in Paris. With a proclamation like that I don’t even have to say that I’m doing well, or I’m happy, or I’m enjoying myself. It’s implied. It’s Paris.
I arrived very early Thursday morning. The plane left Washington DC (the place I flew out of) late, subsequently arrived in Paris late, and then United returned our bags to us late. I’m kind of impressed with myself that I didn’t fall over while waiting for my luggage to arrive. But I eventually did get outside to meet Madame Laroussini. She took me to my temporary housing: her mother’s house (not before commenting on how much luggage I had though).
Settled into Madame Labac’s enormous old Paris apartment, I then fell into a light coma for about three and a half hours. I’m a big supporter of the “don’t go to sleep until its bedtime in the place you’re visiting” rule. It’s far easier to get onto a different schedule if you do it immediately. Yet, I decided to ignore this rule, and I went to sleep at a reasonable hour that night anyway. Last night (Saturday) I went to sleep around midnight and woke up around 10. I’d say that’s a very reasonable schedule for a college student on the weekends. So there “Mr. Rule”, take that!
Having been here but three days I’ve already seen what most Parisians hadn’t (until recently): L’arc de Triomphe covered in a light yet solid dusting of snow. For a city that normally gets little to no snow at all, an inch of it covering the car windshields, the sidewalks, and patches of it around the cobblestone streets can be a big discussion point.
Friday was Day 1 of orientation at the Centre Madeleine, which is the name for the Middlebury Center in Paris. It’s called the Centre Madeleine because of it’s proximity to the Madeleine, an old Greek-looking church. Orientation was boring. It was nice to meet all the people I’d been in contact with via email, but other than that “pas grandes choses”.
I did get a godmother, though! Her name is Faustyine, which is very chic. It so happens that Faustyine spent a year at Middlebury studying English! How appropriate. She’s now one year into her masters studying how to teach French to foreigners. (In France, college is apparently only three years and masters is two.)
Yesterday evening I, along with the rest of my group, had a rendez-vous with Faustyine. We met up at the metro station near La Grande Epicerie, took a looksie, and stopped dead in our tracks when we saw this:
I’d show you more of these tantalizing treats, but not one second after my flash went off a guard came up to me saying photos are “interdit”, or not allowed. Oh well.
Luckily, photos of Le Bon Marché are not forbidden, so I can show you these:
Bon marché basically means a good buy at a good price. This store is not that. Its gorgeous, and sophisticated, and full of tempting items that make you want to spend more than you can afford. We just bought some adaptors (yay for working phones with French numbers!) and left before the spell took us over completely.
The next stop was Paris 3. What is “Paris 3” you ask? Well, The Sorbonne is now a few different schools located around different parts of Paris. Paris 3 and Paris 1 (where I’ll be studying) are just two disjointed bits of the Sorbonne. And let me just say: Paris 3 is ugly! The best description I can think of is “blah”. Blah, blah, blah. It doesn’t have an old, charming facade, or even modern, streamline architecture. It’s stuck in something of a funk. If you’ve ever seen Johnson (the art building) at Middlebury, picture that, only one long flat floor, and in white. Johnson’s excuse is at least that it’s an art building. Paris 3 is a disgrace to Parisians. (But I’m told that Paris 1 is très joli!)
The Paris library is far from a disgrace. It’s quite interesting in my opinion. Faustyine brought us there to admire the architecture, introduce us to the system there, and show us the display of photographs. Everything was interesting. The main part of the library is contained within four modern-looking yet stubby skyscrapers. One walks up the steps leading to a plateau where there is a view of the “middle”, which is a rectangular structure surrounding something of a garden. One goes down an escalator from the plateau and enters the library. It’s pretty neat.
Frozen to the core, and quite tired, we hit a café for some hot drinks before heading home. I stopped at the Monoprix across the street to buy a few things before going to the apartment. I did things the French way: I bought only a few items for immediate use rather than “stocking up”. The best thing about food here is the freshness of it. Take a look at the dinner I prepared for a visual (and a pang of jealousy if you desire):
I arrived very early Thursday morning. The plane left Washington DC (the place I flew out of) late, subsequently arrived in Paris late, and then United returned our bags to us late. I’m kind of impressed with myself that I didn’t fall over while waiting for my luggage to arrive. But I eventually did get outside to meet Madame Laroussini. She took me to my temporary housing: her mother’s house (not before commenting on how much luggage I had though).
Settled into Madame Labac’s enormous old Paris apartment, I then fell into a light coma for about three and a half hours. I’m a big supporter of the “don’t go to sleep until its bedtime in the place you’re visiting” rule. It’s far easier to get onto a different schedule if you do it immediately. Yet, I decided to ignore this rule, and I went to sleep at a reasonable hour that night anyway. Last night (Saturday) I went to sleep around midnight and woke up around 10. I’d say that’s a very reasonable schedule for a college student on the weekends. So there “Mr. Rule”, take that!
Having been here but three days I’ve already seen what most Parisians hadn’t (until recently): L’arc de Triomphe covered in a light yet solid dusting of snow. For a city that normally gets little to no snow at all, an inch of it covering the car windshields, the sidewalks, and patches of it around the cobblestone streets can be a big discussion point.
Friday was Day 1 of orientation at the Centre Madeleine, which is the name for the Middlebury Center in Paris. It’s called the Centre Madeleine because of it’s proximity to the Madeleine, an old Greek-looking church. Orientation was boring. It was nice to meet all the people I’d been in contact with via email, but other than that “pas grandes choses”.
I did get a godmother, though! Her name is Faustyine, which is very chic. It so happens that Faustyine spent a year at Middlebury studying English! How appropriate. She’s now one year into her masters studying how to teach French to foreigners. (In France, college is apparently only three years and masters is two.)
Yesterday evening I, along with the rest of my group, had a rendez-vous with Faustyine. We met up at the metro station near La Grande Epicerie, took a looksie, and stopped dead in our tracks when we saw this:
I’d show you more of these tantalizing treats, but not one second after my flash went off a guard came up to me saying photos are “interdit”, or not allowed. Oh well.
Luckily, photos of Le Bon Marché are not forbidden, so I can show you these:
Bon marché basically means a good buy at a good price. This store is not that. Its gorgeous, and sophisticated, and full of tempting items that make you want to spend more than you can afford. We just bought some adaptors (yay for working phones with French numbers!) and left before the spell took us over completely.
The next stop was Paris 3. What is “Paris 3” you ask? Well, The Sorbonne is now a few different schools located around different parts of Paris. Paris 3 and Paris 1 (where I’ll be studying) are just two disjointed bits of the Sorbonne. And let me just say: Paris 3 is ugly! The best description I can think of is “blah”. Blah, blah, blah. It doesn’t have an old, charming facade, or even modern, streamline architecture. It’s stuck in something of a funk. If you’ve ever seen Johnson (the art building) at Middlebury, picture that, only one long flat floor, and in white. Johnson’s excuse is at least that it’s an art building. Paris 3 is a disgrace to Parisians. (But I’m told that Paris 1 is très joli!)
The Paris library is far from a disgrace. It’s quite interesting in my opinion. Faustyine brought us there to admire the architecture, introduce us to the system there, and show us the display of photographs. Everything was interesting. The main part of the library is contained within four modern-looking yet stubby skyscrapers. One walks up the steps leading to a plateau where there is a view of the “middle”, which is a rectangular structure surrounding something of a garden. One goes down an escalator from the plateau and enters the library. It’s pretty neat.
Frozen to the core, and quite tired, we hit a café for some hot drinks before heading home. I stopped at the Monoprix across the street to buy a few things before going to the apartment. I did things the French way: I bought only a few items for immediate use rather than “stocking up”. The best thing about food here is the freshness of it. Take a look at the dinner I prepared for a visual (and a pang of jealousy if you desire):
Ahhh Paris!!! Your writing makes it come alive. The beginning of a wonderful semester. Looking forward to many more posts and photos (the food ones are always good but the Bon Marche was supurb)xoxo Mom
ReplyDelete