A big bowl of culture

Coucou –

Hi guys! Sorry for the little hiatus, but I’m back! Oral defense is done, but now I actually have to write my dissertation – 3 pages down, 27 more to go! This weekend hasn’t been too exciting because I’ve been locking myself in my room to write (or at least try to).

Luckily though, Friday night, my friend Laura and I went to the Comédie-Française to see Phèdre, by Racine, who my seat neighbor described as the French Shakespeare. Admittedly I spent most of the performance not quite knowing what was going on (I knew someone had died but not really, there was a crazy lady, then my favorite character died a gruesome death – that sums it up, right?), but I really enjoying going none the less. The best part though – our tickets were only 5 euros! For all the shows in the main theater (Salle Richelieu), the company has 65 limited visibility seats available for sale an hour before the show begins, which sell for 5 euros at the little ticket office (“petit bureau”) on the side of the theater. And when they say limited visibility, they mean it. My seat was on the 1^st balcony all the way to the edge right by the stage, so I could only actually see half the stage. I didn’t learn that there was a desk on the stage until after the show when Laura told me (she was sitting on the other side of the theater, one floor up). It was still really fun to go all dressed up and enjoy a night of French culture. Plus Pierre Niney (who was in the film "20 ans d'ecart") was in the show which made it more exciting because he's really impressive (and awkward).

(pictures once blogspot let's me upload them)

I’m sharing this story though because for me it’s a reminder of the accessibility of French culture. Sure, in the States it’s pretty easy to find shows to see, but tickets are expensive - even the discount tickets on Broadway are more expensive (my sister and I once saw Bring it on: the Musical and we paid $15 for standing room only tickets). If you wait until the last minute in Paris, you can find some pretty good prices. And it’s not just for theater. The first Sunday of every month, all of the public museums (some of the monuments too) are free to everyone. Granted, that sometimes means long lines and crowds, but still, it’s cheap. And for students studying in the European Union, many of these museums are free on a daily basis with proper identification. Since I’m on a long-stay student visa, I can just show a copy of my visa and profit from this rule (you can only legally stay in France without a visa for 3 months). But even if I wasn’t a student here, if you’re under 26, most places will still give you a reduced fare. So far I’ve gotten into Musée d’Orsay, Musée du Louvre and Musée Rodin all for free.

A lot of these laws stem from France’s attempt to encourage youth to learn about art and culture starting at a young age, which I find really interesting. If you think about the Pompidou Center, which is the modern art museum, there’s a library inside the museum to encourage students to combine education and culture. I wrote an exam paper on this earlier this semester, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized how much I was learning and profiting from it. 

I still have a month left here, and I’m hoping to profit from this cultural emphasis even more in my time here. It’s scary to think that I’ve been here for almost four months when sometimes it doesn’t even feel like it. I’m excited to go home eventually, but at the same time I’m already getting a little sad that I have to leave this city so soon. There’s so much left to do, and I’m hoping that this month I’ll be able to accomplish a lot (work and travel wise). So far I’ve got trips to London, Cannes (film festival anyone?) and Nice scheduled, but we’ll see what else happens along the way. 

And for all of those who have been keeping up with this blog, merci beaucoup. A tout!

Bises, Dana

Photos

Hey guys!

Quick note - I realized some of you might not be connected to Facebook, and I also realized that I've taken plenty of photos lately that have not made it on my page, so I now have a photobucket account for those pictures (it's not my favorite system, but it works).

For more of my photos from Parc Floral, click here.

Bonne journée!
Dana

Let's see how far we've come.

Hi again!

Possibly the last post from me a little bit – I have my oral defense of my memoir next week so I really need to start focusing on that and writing my memoir. I’ll update when I can, but no promises.

Anyways, something I’ve been thinking about a lot have been the expectations I had had for Paris before coming here, and how they’ve changed after living here for 3 months (which, let’s be honest, is crazy to think about). I’ve realized that I had a lot of stereotypes in mind before travelling, and that looking back now there are also some things that I wouldn’t have expected.

1, The French are rude:  While yes, this is generally true, I’ve come across people who have genuinely surprised me. When I first got to Paris and had to buy my metro pass, the lady at the metro station walked me through the whole process and made sure I understood everything. After work one day, I went to my favorite chocolatier (which also sells macarons), and when I asked one of the sales people if I could sample a broken macaron (technically you can’t sell a broken one), she gave me a perfect macaron of her favorite flavor and smiled at me.  Last week, I had the opportunity to go to an art exposition inauguration (no big deal, right?) at the Institut du Monde Arabe, which has one of the best rooftop views of Paris. While I didn’t have an invitation to the inauguration party, the man at the entrance told me how to get to the terrace on the roof. From there the guard manning the terrace entrance let me go out there for a few minutes despite not being a paying customer at the café or being part of the party. So really, not all Parisians are that bad – sometimes you just need to ask for help.

2, I would travel all the time: Before leaving the States, I had a big picture idea of what my semester would be like. I would take classes, then intern, and over the weekend I would jet off to different cities in different countries just because I could. As of this weekend, it’s been a month since I’ve left Paris. As much as I’d like to travel, I just don’t have the time and energy that I thought I would.  During the week, I’m at the office about 8 hours a day, plus our weekly seminar after work. By the time I get home, it’s usually almost time for dinner and then I get a few hours to myself before going to bed. When the weekend comes around, all I want to do is sleep or run the errands I forgot to do during the week. Plus if I really wanted to take advantage of visiting a new city, I would have to leave early Saturday and come back late Sunday, which to me is rather crazy. And I’m glad it’s worked out this way. I’m still getting chances to travel, but I’m also getting to see more of Paris, and the less touristy side of things. Every day I fall more and more in love with this city, and I can’t even think about leaving it now (we’ll worry about that later).

3, I would only have French friends: This one was a stretch, but I was really hoping to meet French people my age to get to know and to talk with in French. Unfortunately, my foyer is full of international students, which makes it harder to meet French people. And even when I meet French people, sometimes they want to speak in English as to improve their language skills. Even though I haven’t met the people I thought I would, I’ve made some good friends here and I’m still grateful for that. 

I’ll probably add to this list soon, but those were the big ones I could think of at the moment. But in other news, today was 70+ degrees (Fahrenheit) and absolutely wonderful. We sat by the Seine for hours just enjoying the weather and the people around us. Paris never ceases to amaze me.

Dana 

P.S. anyone get the title reference?

Still a flower child at heart.

So I love and hate Saturdays. I love them because I can relax and explore Paris, but I don’t speak much French on the weekends, or at least not as much as I do during the week. Today has been a pretty good Saturday though. I wanted to get away from all the tourists and be around French people for a little while, so I went a little out of the city to the Bois de Vincennes and to the Parc Floral.

Here’s a fun fact about me – I love flowers. I used to wear things with flowers on them all the time (not sure what happened to that), and in art classes I would paint lilies all the time. After all my dance recitals and shows, my parents would always bring me flowers, and I’d get to arrange them in the vase however I wanted. I just think they can convey thoughts that sometimes words can’t. Like red roses to say I love you or a bouquet of flowers after a show to say congratulations, I’m so proud of you. Flowers mean something to someone, whether it’s the giver or the receiver. So yeah, I love flowers. So when finding out that there’s a whole park in Paris full of them, I had to go explore. Although it’s mid-April, spring arrived pretty late in Paris and most of the flowers hadn’t bloomed yet. Nevertheless, I brought my wonderful DSLR camera along and took almost a hundred pictures in a couple of hours. I hope you enjoy them! 

 Dana

My name's Dana, and I love food.

Hi guys!

Several posts coming at you in the next couple of days – I couldn’t figure out a good way to combine all my thoughts into one, so bear with me and I hope you enjoy!

First up, what I’ve been waiting to talk about – food!

I am a self-proclaimed foodie. I can cook basics and am a decent baker, but really I love learning about different types of food and (cautiously) trying new things. I remember after I had my wisdom teeth taken out, my mom settled me into her bed and left the TV on Food Network all day, and I was quite content (besides it being post-surgery of course).

I think my love of food inadvertently led me to France. I originally chose French as my foreign language when I was 12 years old, and just kept taking classes through college. But when I started learning about food, I loved that I could understand certain terms because of my familiarity with another language. There are some culinary terms that don’t really translate into English, so for me it’s cool to know the actual meaning. With that in mind, and knowing France to be so well known for its food, here I am today!

I’ve had French classics while being here – escargot, cheese, crepes, croque monsieur, to name a few. But to be honest, I’m more interested in the pastries (les pâtisseries in French). It started out with me asking my program director for recommendations of bakeries in Paris. He then sent me a list, and another, and suddenly I made a pâtisserie bucket list. Most of these places are pretty well known and have some sort of specialty.  

After my coworker gave me some more names, my list probably has around 15 places. So far, I think I’ve been to about 8 of them (Laura comes with me to most of them so we can vary our purchases). Some have been pricey, but nonetheless worth it to say I’ve been there. Here are some of my personal favorites:

Popelini - cream puffs with different flavors

Hugo & Victor

Pierre Hermé - macarons (and chocolate I believe)

I also went out and bought a guidebook (with ratings) of other patisseries to go to – some of the names were already on my list, but I’m excited to discover more.

On the cooking/baking side of things, I’ve been slacking. I didn’t want to buy all new baking equipment to use for 5 months (now less than 2 months, woah), and my fridge is far too small for all the ingredients I might want. So I’ve been cooking pretty basic meals for myself, but I finally went out and bought a few cookbooks to use. So far I’ve made a croque monsieur…hoping more will follow!

Dana

Expecting the unexpected (Paris edition)

Hi there!

So admittedly I’ve been meaning to blog for the past couple of nights now, but somehow I always lose track of time or simply forget. Lately it seems like things are busier here than before, but I think that’s because our memoir defenses are in 2 weeks and everyone’s trying to get their research together. So far, I have a topic and a plan. The research is getting there (this blog post is my distraction tonight).

So this weekend was quite eventful and entertaining. Saturday was International Pillow Fight Day, which meant there was a 30 minute flash mob pillow fight in front of Gare Saint Lazare in Paris on Saturday afternoon. It was one of the best things I’ve seen here. When typically Parisians are put together, well-dressed and all that, Saturday afternoon people got into the fight. There were feathers everywhere, children on shoulders whacking from above, screaming, all of it. It was awesome. I personally didn’t participate (I went to document the madness) because I didn’t want to get whacked in the face with glasses, but Laura had an opportunity to get into it and she came out winded but laughing. 

The flash mob fight

We then met our friend Emily to go bakery hunting – towards the beginning of the semester I made a list of all the patisseries I want to visit in Paris (with help from my program director and a coworker), and Laura has been helping me through this list. I’ll get into this list more when I dedicate a whole post to food (I promise it will happen soon). Anyways, that afternoon we went to a cupcake store (disappointing, but really cute), bubble tea (Emily had never had it before) and Pierre Hermé, which might actually have better macarons than Ladurée. So for the most part, a very successful afternoon.

Laura's cupcake

Pierre Herme

Then yesterday it was absolutely beautiful in Paris. While most of my friends at home have been enjoying warm weather already, Paris has had an abnormally long winter that (I’m hoping) ended on Saturday. It was so nice to see plenty of people lounging outside, whether by the Seine or on the steps of Sacre Coeur. I spent a bit of the afternoon in Montmartre with a friend visiting from University of Nottingham, who didn’t actually know about Sacre Coeur (and she knows about all the churches in Europe). The line to visit the basilica wasn’t that long, so we went in and looked around – to my knowledge, it’s the only church in Paris that doesn’t allow you to take pictures inside. Nevertheless, it was still very cool to see finally and to spend a day outside of my room.

I think I’ve sufficiently distracted myself now, so I should get back to my research. Hopefully my food blog post will be posted this week!

Dana