Les adventures à Paris

Translation: Adventures in Paris. (You should have been able to translate that one yourself!)

The past 2 weeks have been full of adventures all within Paris. Even despite the rolling strikes (which really haven't been so bad), and the "terrorist threats" (also not causing any distress as opposed to the US's media coverage), the past 14 days have been the most fun I've had in Paris, and the most, well, Parisian.

Fondue Dinner

Last Thursday night I met my friends and some other students for dinner at L'Assiette aux Fromages, a fondue restaurant on Rue Mouffetard in the 5th. The night was put together by ACCENT, the company that works with UC to create and manage the school I attend here in Paris.

The dinner only cost 10 euro, and It was by far the best 10 euro I have yet to spend during my time in Paris so far. We were treated to a 3 course fondue dinner, with sides of salad, ham, potatoes and green-beans. The first courses were served at the same time, a cheese fondue eaten with bread (big skewer), and an oil fondue which cooks pieces of raw beef for you to dip in a choice of sauces (little skewer). Usually the fondue's are strictly eaten as bread with cheese, meat in oil then sauce, however because of my dietary issues, I was allowed to break the rules a little bit and dip my cooked pieces of meat in the cheese - like a gourmet philly cheese steak bite. Ryan however, was the first to try the meat and cheese combination. Adrien and Mattieu, the ACCENT employees who came to the dinner, told Ryan that it was totally fine to dip the meat in the cheese. Ryan being the smarty pants that he is, stabbed a piece of raw meat and set it in the pot of cheese fondue - perhaps he thought the cheese was hot enough to cook the meat? When the rest of the table realized what had happened, our chuckling could not be contained, especially that of our French hosts, Adrien and Mattieu. What happened to make it more hilarious was that the burners under our fondue pots weren't working correctly and a waiter came to switch out our fondue pots. The raw meat was still sitting in the cheese pot, not cooking, and the waiter politely removed the skewer and placed it on Ryan's plate before taking the pot away from the table. The waiter's surprised expression was priceless when he realized that the cheese-covered morsel on the end of the skewer was meat, uncooked meat, instead of the bread he was expecting. This faux pas only caused an uproar of laughter, embarrassing Ryan as he tried to blame Mattieu "you told me to do it!", and Mattieu could only continue to laugh. Oh silly Americans, we're so easy to target and make fun of. I had glanced at Ryan's plate a few minutes later to find no evidence of the cheese drenched raw meat; he had eaten it when no one was looking. Mattieu at first looked concerned - why would he eat that?! But there's no harm in it, to your stomach at least. Lesson of the evening - don't stick your beef tartar in your cheese fondue.

Being the little girl famous for her enormous appetite, I very much enjoyed my dinner, especially when a member of my table was a vegetarian and traded me his portion of beef for my basket of bread - it worked out quite nicely. It was a bit embarrassing towards the end of the course though, as the waiter came to take the fondue from our table about 4 times, and each time I was still eating. The waiter and Adrien and Mattieu made fun of me, in shock of how much food I really can put away (it was their first meal with me, ha!), but it was all good fun, saying that it was a good thing.

Dessert was a chocolate fondue, served with a plate of fruit and marshmallows, (this time there's only one skewer so don't stress). The entire meal was delicious, filling, and so much fun. The little restaurant was charming, and I hope to go back although I will have to pay more than 10 euro next time.

Fête des Vendanges

October 6th through October 10th was this year's Fête des Vandanges, a celebration of the grape harvest in Montmartre.

Also known as the fête l'humor, it is a celebration of all the enjoyment and nutty things that can happen after a few too many glasses of wine. The festival itself took place at the top of Montmartre, around the Sacre Cœur, the narrow cobblestone streets lined with booth after booth of wine; red wine, white wine, champagne from Champagne, dessert and flavored wines.

Nestled in between them are booths of different nature to please your grumbling stomach and play off the notes your various wine samples left tingling on your tongue, displays covered with every kind of sausage you could imagine, and some you've never heard of.

You'll occasionally get a whiff of something really stinky causing you to look around you to find the stinky frenchman to blame, then realize you just passed a wheel of cheese, so big that it's probably taller than Grandma. There's booths of macaroons, and bon bons, gelato, nougat, and seasoned baguettes, roasted chestnuts, sausages smothered in sauerkraut, giant vats full of chili con carne and potatoes au gratin (my favorite booth), and even beer if you're sick of wine. You walk through the masses of people, protecting your small plastic glass of wine bought for anywhere from 2-8 euro, listening to an accordion, trying to avoid getting run over by the three-man band, and concentrate on how many oysters or éscargot you would like to buy.

Yes, I bought, and ate, both oysters and éscargot - and they weren't as bad as I thought they might be.

The whole mentality of the festival was loose in comparison to everyday life in Paris. It was literally four days designated for Parisians to let go, and have some fun. There's music everywhere, parades taking over the hilly streets, fireworks (the only other occasion besides July 14th), and probably the nutty-est thing I heard of was being able to un-marry your spouse. During fête des vendanges, one and one's spouse can simply say "I un-marry you" in French three times in a row and legitimately be "un-married", at least for the duration of the festival.

I didn't see any of that actually happen, but my French Teacher told my class that it's part of the tradition of the "humor" part of the festival.

My friends and I spent 2 days at the festival. On top of my oysters and éscargot, I enjoyed some real champagne from Champagne, Melon (cantaloupe) wine, chili con carne, potatoes au gratin and lots of wine. Lots of wine. We sat on the grassy hillside in the warm golden sunshine, in front of Sacre Cœur listening to the music surrounding us, enjoying the most beautiful view of the city in all of Paris. It was a couple days in Paris that will be hard to beat.

A dinner party

Monday evening I was in my room, working away on my homework, wondering if I had misunderstood Madame when she was explaining dinner for that night. It was 8:30 and we usually ate at 7:30 - were they not feeding me tonight? Is that what she had said? But then I heard the doorbell ring, and Madam came and knocked on my own door to invite me to an aperitif before dinner - score!

I walked into the living room and greeted Madame and Monsieur's middle daughter Penelopé and was introduced to her godmother Édith, a warm older woman, very much like Madame. I sat between Édith and Penelopé, Madame handed me a glass of champagne, and I commenced snapping my head to a fro, trying to understand the french words that were flying past my eardrums at rapid rates. I think Édith saw me trying to hide my wide eyes behind my tipped champagne glass because she reached out to my shoulder looking at Madame and asked if I, the poor thing, understood anything that they were saying. One glass of champagne on my grumbling empty stomach gave me a little more confidence than usual, and I was able to pipe up and defend myself, explaining that I understood some of it, that they just spoke so fast, and I was very shy with my French. Édith looked at me in surprise "Mais tu parle français très bien!", and they proceeded to include me in their conversation, telling stories about traveling to Quebec and not being able to understand a word of their French, asking if Canadians had an accent when they spoke English as well, asking me how to pronounce English words that sounded so strange to their romantic ears like "sewing".

The five of us moved to the dinner table for salmon and cabbage. Monsieur filled all of our glasses with wine, re-filling his discretely after finishing it in one gulp, making a point to refill mine when Penelopé caught him. Édith was queen of conversation, she was invited to dinner because she had just returned from a mission trip in Afghanistan where she helped women and girls who were victims of war violence, poverty and disease. She told stories of all the different women she helped, the various households she visited, the many struggles each woman went through everyday. She was animated and passionate - there was something about her that was so interesting and genuine. I loved to see how she and Madame seemed to be such good friends, they reminded me of my Grandma and her friend Helen. There was so much banter, so much life and happiness in their conversations, so much love going round the table - I felt so happy and honored to be included. The more time I spend with my host family, the more I want to spend even more time with them and get to know them.

The story telling and lecturing of poor Monsieur over his bad, sugary eating habits and lack of exercise lasted until about 11:30 when we all realized what time it was, and said our goodbyes. I went back to my room after helping monsieur clean up, feeling more like part of the family.

Théâtre des Champs- Élysées

On Tuesday evening, I attended a concert put on by the Ensemble orchestral de Paris. My first night at the symphony in Paris, and I am in love. How do people in the states not take advantage of the theater? Perhaps it's again because of the youth discounts and last minute tickets that Paris ensures to make available to the public. This evening was again organized by ACCENT, and I only had to pay 12 euro. Usually, for any opera, ballet or symphony, you can wait in line for last minute tickets that cost anywhere from 5-20 euro, and often when buying tickets in advance, student or youth discounts can lower your initial pice to around 10 euro - it's fantastic.

The orchestra itself was extremely interesting. They played various pieces from classic to modern styles, but it all was beautiful and impressive. The orchestra performed solely, then with guest piano accompanist Jonathan Biss from the states, as well as a colorful and extremely talented string octet. I was mesmerized by the entire performance. I love watching other people perform; examining how they move with their instruments, how their bodies entwined with their instruments like extensions of their limbs, evoke the very emotion of the song. But I was surprised to be observing the crowd more often than the performers.

My first distraction was a famous composer who was sitting in the row in front of me, Nicolas Bacri. One of his pieces was performed to open the concert. It was different from anything I had ever heard, so demanding of the ear. At the end, Monsieur Bacri walked to the stage and shook hands with the conductor and first chair violinist as he was clearly enthralled by their performance of his piece.

The audience fed more of my observation throughout the night. For the most part, people were completely still. Hardly anyone moved in their seats, hardly anyone made any sound unless they had a cold and were discretely going through their bag searching for couch drops. Even between songs, no one moved. I've never attended the symphony in the states before so I don't know if it's the same as here, but in the symphonies in France, you do not applaud after every song. Collections are played from various conductors, so instead of applauding after each song, you applaud after each composer. I thought it was extremely strange; it was only something I noticed as I had to refrain from clapping, even if it was something I really enjoying. There isn't any cheering, or vocal sound in addition to the applause, however, at the end one is allowed to call out "bravo!". If the audience would like an encore, it is not vocalized, but the applause falls into a rhythmic pattern, serving as a non-vocal and elegant chant to urge the performers to play another song.

I also found the audience's style of dress to be of interest. Being in Paris, I assumed I would be underdressed in skirt and heels, my hair up, and wearing lipstick, but instead I was nearly overdressed. Most of the people were wearing jeans and nice shirts, it was hardly any different than going to the movies.

I'm about halfway through my time in Paris now, and time is only passing more rapidly. This coming weekend I will be spending in Prague, the following is fall break during which I will travel to Barcelona, then Northern Italy, and the holiday weekend following my return to Paris, I will be spending in Ireland. After that I only have about 4 weeks left in Paris - I'm scrambling to make more plans! But for now, I'm enjoying these past couple of weekends, really getting to know Paris, and enjoying her more and more.