Rain, rain, clouds, red praline and....rain. And then more clouds.

I find myself slipping into a mediumly depressing depression as I wake up, day after day, to the same pale gray skies. They do not tell time, since it's basically the same level of melancholy light from 9 (very late sunrise) to 5 (and early sunset). This morning I did get to see a beautiful sunrise though, so maybe I should try to get my cheese-bread-and-Nutella-fed butt out of bed earlier.

I am sorry if anyone is "following" this blog. It's probably disappointing since I basically never post anything! And now I'm going to have blog diarrhea from the past 2 weeks of not posting. Yay!

beautiful sacré-coeur 

Let the cleanse commence:

My classes at Paris VII started this week, all on the same day, from 9-12 then 2-5 in French. My notes, and everyone here takes mad notes, have a lot of question marks and "I think she's saying..." so that gives you an idea of my comprehension level. I do think I got lucky with my professors though, because they both seem approachable and one even offers supplementary work for non-French speakers, which is not what I expected at all. Other things I didn't expect about French university courses–no syllabi to be seen, students are kind of rude/informal with the professors, everyone wears jeans, people talk at full volume to each other during a lecture (RUDE), there's no books to buy :D, I already have to do an oral presentation GAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!H!H!HH!!!!!!!!

Also, I showed up to a class I thought I had on Thursday morning only to discover an empty room. Then, looking back through my notes, scrawled at the top "TD to commence next week." Brain you have failed me, I'm sure for the first of many times during this adventure. Also, french classes have two sections, the cours magistral (CM) and the TD, but my silly brain doesn't remember what that stands for. The CM is all lecture and the TD is like the participatory part, where I will be making a fool of myself next week when I do my exposé. If nothing else, I will provide a wonderful semester-long source of fun for my French peers. Every time I raise my hand, I'm sure giggles will abound as I say things in French like "The sociology, it is, what is, and that is why what they migration they is good, but for some is bad but not really or things like that." Ahhh, Tuesdays, the days when my French eloquence will have a real chance to shine in the classroom.

Besides school, this week I went to two different falafel places (Moaz was better that L'as, don't listen to Rick Steves!), went to the Louvre just to use the free toilet, saw lots of people doing Tai Chi (it's definitely a thing here), ate a kiwi, got tickets to Istanbul (!), went to Montmarte/ Sacré-Coeur (neighborhood of Amelie and a beautiful church) and visited Lyon. Lyon was wonderful. It's a city south of Paris and we took the TGV, this really fast train that provided beautiful blurry views of quaint French countryside, which honestly looked a bit like Niwot. Fields is fields. Lyon is really old, and we visited these cool old Roman ruins, and walked through these passageways built in medieval times between the houses.  The buildings were are leaning stucco in subdued warm shades, with creaky doors and lot of wood trim, crammed together. But, the crowning glory of the Lyon trip, actually the two crowning glories were finally feeling sun on my cheeks for the first time in two weeks and eating a Lyonnaise specialty, brioche aux pralines. It was like this huge brioche bun the size of my face, swirled with this caramely, sugary almond praline that was dyed a bizarre garish red color. Om nom nom nom nom! 2 euros to happiness and rose-hued bowel movements. But the sun really was lovely as well. I wonder how I will survive this gray without growing three sizes bigger from Nutella binging. Maybe I need to do Tai Chi.

FALAFEL!!! so many tasty veggies and sauces

Yes, so the homesickness has hit. I knew it would inevitably follow the shiny novelty of living in Paris. Ironically, my exposé is on "the marginal man" a term from American sociologist Park given to migrants stuck between two cultures. According to him, this gives one freedom, liberated from an old society but not yet fully inducted into the new. In this case, I am liberated from wonderful American things like peanut butter and smiling at strangers. And snacking and being obnoxious and cup-of-noodles, which are all things I didn't think I would miss but do. And most of all, sunshine. I have been spoiled by living in two perpetually sunny places and now I am doing penance. It just started raining.

Le Blog...She eeez born! Also, why French babies are the best.

I have decided to have a blog about my Parisian adventures. Since I am notoriously bad at staying in touch with people, I thought this would be a good way to let lots of people know what I'm doing in a short amount of time. Between eating 35 croissants a day, trying on berets and practicing my French laugh in front of the mirror, I hardly have time to practice my miming skills, let alone send a bunch of different emails ou les choses comme ca. "Les choses comme ca" has become a very useful phrase for me and my lack of French. It means "things like that" and it's very useful when your vocabulary is not good enough to think of more than one example for something. Which has happened to me a lot, since I basically have the vocabulary of a French 4-year old

French underwear purchased in high school
Prophecy underwear??? What else
can I learn from them? Will I one day
speak French to pieces of French toast
with mustaches and berets? What does
the future hold??????

Speaking of French 4-year olds...they are the cutest children in the world! All the French kids are très adorables. They wear these puffy marshmallow jackets and hats and scarves and mittens and manage to look way more chic than me. They have little rosy cheeks from the Parisian winter chill and cute little French accents. If I ever see one of them holding a mini-baguette, the cuteness might kill me. I love to watch them, not in the way of a pedophiliac, in a touristy way. Rick Steves said nothing about the les petits enfants, but I find French-child-watching a heart-warming and completely free use of my time. 

It happened especially this morning. I live in the 19th arrondissement, and there is a beautiful park, Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, really closeby. It's gorgeous, with this rock structure in the middle of it that you can climb up surrounded by a little pond. There's lots of ducks and geese, huge piles of dog poop, jogging Parisians, and (most importantly) cutie little French babies for me to spy on. 

view from mountain thingy at Parc

Today I had my first Sweet Briar encounter, a little meet and greet type deal at a café. I got there really early–it was my first time using the métro–and I had time to wander about. I saw the Eiffel Tower, disappearing off into a gloomy haze of clouds. It seems perpetually cloudy here. I hope this is going to be okay for me. I live in a state with over 300 days of sunshine and go to school in sunny SoCal. But, if I get depressed, I know what to do: stalk some French bébés. Who needs Prozac... ou les choses comme ca? People say the French Paradox is the ability French people have to stay thin while eating so much rich and delicious food. I, however, think the real French Paradox is this: If everyone thinks French people are so arrogant and rude, how can they have children that are cuter than bunnies and chinchilla pups and mini-sized things? 

oh la la, French spice shelf
just like any other
shelf... but with spices

Here is the answer: they aren't rude or arrogant at all. Or any more than normal people, everyone's a little rude and arrogant when it comes down to it. My host family is wonderful and when my host brother had a party I got so many many cheek kisses from French teens I couldn't count them. 

I think we all know what this is.  But notice the gray
skies and bleak fog that will now greet me every day. 

Well I don't know what else to say. Of course there is a lot to say but it is too much. I'll have to spread it out, like butter on a croissant. Yes, croissants could use more butter. 

À bientôt !