Arcades

In an effort to actually see Paris, despite the ridiculous work schedule that I have, I went exploring in the arcades. The sun was just setting while I was walking around which gave the tunnels a perfectly romantic and slightly eerie bluish glow that made the walls look golden. This was the first time that I brought out my real camera. That's right, I sucked it up and became a tourist. When I'm not in class or reading or working, I get my small doses of joy by being asked for directions (because I look like a local, obviously), actually knowing where the thing is, and responding (in french!). I was willing to give that up to take pictures and explore a tourist locale. My new goal is to figure out how to look like the camera is for art school, therefore giving me even more street cred.

Love,
Violet

P.S. Writing a paper that's due at 5pm (3hrs and 15 mins from now). Wish me luck!

Address

Also, I officially have an address. If you want it email me and I'll give it to you. Yay letters!

L'arc, viewed appropriately

So, this week marked the start of a new quarter and thus a new professor. I really like our new one (she refers to our last prof as poppa ralph), but I have been drowning in work since we started with her (hence no posts). Anyhow, the one night that I actually managed to do something other than reading (not sleeping was the tradeoff), was when Alexis and I went to dinner at a real-live French couples house! It was awesome. We were late, not because of the strikes, not because of traffic but because we got off on the wrong side of the train at the last stop and there were no exits. We had to jump (read:belly flop/shimmy) over a wall in order to get out. Then we walked 2 miles underground to find the right exit. We were angry, but when we realized that the issue was l'arc de triomphe we were a little less upset. We arrived at 9 and had a traditional, delicious multi course meal and a lot of fun. Until we realized the time: quarter to 1. On weekdays, including friday, the trains stop running at 1. Why do trains stop running! This city and London need to get their acts together. So we ran to the train, did the 2 miles underground again (I'm wearing 5 inch wedges, by the way), only to find out that the last train was at 12:41, because it's the beginning of the line. So we have to jump over the turnstyle, because we are again on the wrong side and grab a cab. The upside to all this? I got to see l'arc de triomphe, movie style, going around in a cab with my head sticking out, taking blurry pictures.

Love,
Violet

School Planned Wine Tasting

Friday afternoon, right after our final, we had a wine and cheese tasting at school. In other words, after studying for 24 hours and then having 2 hours to write 2 essays about 2 topics and 2 books each, they gave us 5 glasses of wine and told us to drink slowly. We all really needed the moment of relaxation. Our sommelier was so perfectly French, he showed us a map for reference for the regions and wrote on the board the proper tasting protocol. I took some videos that I will try to load tonight. Oh the cheese was awesome also!

Love,
Violet

By popular demand

So, in the vein of politics and because I got a facebook message from my mother, I am dedicating this post to the greve. Oh the greve, how I wish you would give me my trains back. Ok, but actually here is the issue. The government wants to change the retirement age from 60 to 62 and then the second age from 65 to 67. However you can't retire until you have worked a certain amount of years in a row, so basically if you opted to take maternity leave, you may not be able to retire until you are 72, or something ridiculous like that. So everyone is taking to the streets. The woman that was telling me about this is a university student. She got so worked up as she was explaining it to me that she started turning pink. It's just so nice to see young people getting involved in something just because they think it's wrong and not because it directly effects them (which to be honest, can even make kids in the states get off their asses, if they even know anything is going on at all). I wish that our country could be more politically active. Haha! You all thought I was going to come back from India, a hippy who has found god but actually I'm going to come back from Paris as a radical leftist. To be fair, India could very easily be credited for that as well. In closing I would like to leave you with the advice that Uchicago sent to us.
"At least temporarily avoid protests, crowded tourist areas and sights, as well as typically American locations such as McDonalds, (Parisiennes love McDonald's, who knew. It's not even cheap here) Starbucks, Hard Rock Cafe, etc. If you find yourself near an emerging protest, remember that the final stages today and recently have involved violence and a crackdown by the police. NEVER engage in action that could appear to suggest your participation in a demonstration, such as walking along with protesters (for the love of god, don't pretend to care about French politics, we know you don't. Don't even appear to suggest that you care).

There you go. I would be happy to answer any questions as usual through comments.

Love,
Violet

Immigration and Immigrants

So, my program is brand new. That means that we take really ill-thought out field trips to random places while the people studying Europe see castles and churches and get fed. Last Friday we went to the immigration museum. It was a little sad. First of all, it's in the middle of nowhere. The building was built for the colonial fair in 1931, which was meant to spark French interest in the colonies and remind them why they were useful. The result is that the facade of the building depicts highly racist pictures of naked people from different continents farming, catching fish etc. The picture shown is one of the depictions of Africa. Our tour didn't even include the meager exhibits, it was just the architecture. Meanwhile a huge demonstration was going on inside. 200 or more illegal African immigrants have been camping out in the museum (shown in the first picture) to try to get their company to give them papers. The main room was so loud we could barely hear. Irregardless, our tour guide refused to acknowledge the event and continued telling us about the depictions of justice and truth. The whole museum is meant to show that a lot of important people are immigrants and that in fact France is a melting pot much like the US. However the museum is largely ignored by the government, especially when it comes to funding, which is unfortunately made evident by the state that the building is in. All in all I liked the message of the museum and supported their efforts until we specifically asked the tour guide what was going on with all the people. She said that the museum didn't really want them there but that it would look bad to throw them out. This made me sad. I mean, if the immigration museum has no interest in helping all these men, who work all the time to send money home, can't visit their families and can't go back to visit, who will? Upon further research of the issue, the whole situation seems even more sad. http://www.african-arts.info/immigration_museum.htm

Love,
Violet

Post Paper Euphoria

I took a little break from posting because I had a paper due yesterday. I say paper, but we were encouraged not to have a thesis and our responses could be "ambiguous as long as they are well-informed" (thanks professor ralph). Needless to say, it was sort of a cluster-frack (thanks, big bang for putting this back into my vocabulary). Anyhow, I am happily on the other side, with the exception of our final on Friday. Yay three week semesters!

love,
Violet

Burlesque! En Francais!

So the other weekend, my friends and I went to a Burlesque Bazaar in the outer rings of Paris. The crowd was amusingly bizarre, and we were having a lot of fun people watching and shopping around. Then the show started. The opening act was a woman with a giant stuffed tiger as a prop, who stripped down to a leopard print bra and underwear, while alternating between tarzan and cat moves. The show continued with women with performances themed by location. The one from Germany was my favorite. She was dressed up as a bar wench holding two big beer glasses (the jug puns were not lost on me). All in all it was really more bizarre than anything else. I think the biggest problem was that French people are sexy without trying, that's the point of them, so if you add the burlesque (in other words, trying really really hard) the appeal sort of falls apart. I guess most people aren't so critical. I mean if you can see penguin pasties on a Sunday afternoon, what more do you want?

Love,
Violet

Meeting French People

Yesterday, our school held a mixer for French students learning English at 2 or 3 Universities and us at the U of C compound. As anyone who has been a college student can imagine, there were a lot of people there for the free food and wine (honestly, that's why I went). At first I was mortified to talk to people, but finally I joined a conversation with one of my friends. We would speak in French and they would speak in English unless one of us couldn't remember how to say something or were incomprehensible, then we would switch. It was sort of sadistically adorable to watch the students who know as much English as I know French turn pink and sweat and shake as they were trying to make sentences. Oh French people... there just like us!

Love,
Violet

The Height of Sophistication

Sometimes I do exciting things in Paris, and sometimes I just eat cereal out of wine glasses in striped shirts. I think it's basically the same thing.

Love,
Violet

Molten Chocolate

The other day, my friend Alexis and I went to a place called Angelina's for pastries and famous hot chocolate. The restaurant was beautiful. It had a very luxurious feel, all in white with a perfectly adorable pastry shop in the front. We each got their specialty and shared a macaron. The hot chocolate was european style, with water instead of milk, so it was basically exactly how you would imagine Willy Wonka's waterfall to taste like. They gave us a pitcher which had no less than 6 cups and a cup of whipped cream that was 5 inches high and 2 inches in diameter, which needless to say I immediately started eating with a spoon. It was so incredibly good that we couldn't finish it because we didn't want to ruin the experience by throwing up. Even though the whole thing cost us 20 euro, I'm pretty sure I'll be back before I leave.

Love,
Violet

Best. Field trip. Ever.

So yesterday, the normal kids (the people taking European civ) got up at 7am to meet at a museum at 9, after having spent the night before at bars with their french conversation people. They had to spend 5 hours looking at tapestries and trying not to fall asleep. What was I doing at this time? Sleeping, suckahs! For the African civ field trip, we met up at 6:30pm. We were fed a sort of strange (but free) African dinner complete with beer or wine, and then we went dancing at an African Music venue. It was awesome. Even though we didn't finish until midnight, it was by far the best field trip I had ever had.

Love,
Violet

The girl in the yellow

Here is the best picture from the ones that the german lady took of me. Apparently it isn't for a blog. It might be in Glamour, Life & Style or Jolie for Germany. I'm not in love with the photo, but that's pretty cool!

Are you proud?

love,
Violet

A shout out to my sweaty friends

Ok so, for this post I have no pictures, but I wish I did. Here's why: a couple nights ago I went to a tango class on the cite universitaire campus. A friend at school told me about it, so I show up with another friend. Since my class goes until 6 (yup, still really hate that), we got there at around 8, even though it started at 7. Turns out we all but missed the beginners class and we are in the free dance part. Never fear! Because my friend was taught by her two friends from Guadalupe. So she gets one of them to dance with me and teach me a bit. So who does she bring to dance with me? Oh only the most beautiful man I have ever seen (besides Javi of course, but not actually, I mean this guy is so godly looking that is almost hard for me to be attracted to him, and by that I mean speak in his presence). So what is the natural reaction to dancing the tango with this man? Well maybe it would be cutely attempt to dance and talk, but in my case it was become entirely unable to understand the very attractive french words that are coming out of his mouth, probably to instruct me on how best not to step on his foot again... oh and then break out into hives and an intense sweat. So not only does he have to hold my hand while I am sweaty (a select few of you have the joy of this experience first hand), he also tries to do this twisty thing to me which does not indeed have the effect of twisting me, but instead ensures that he entirely cups my bare armpit. Yeah, that happened. Needless to say I was mortified, luckily the son ended about 4 seconds after that, so I could go cry, sweat and break out into hives more.

Love and sweat (really need to learn how to say that in french, so that I can apologize for that),
Violet

Crucial part of the last story missing...

After he equating us to television there was a pretty long awkward pause. Then he started feeding us french fries straight from the deep fryer. I guess he learned how to make friends with Americans from television. It definitely worked.

love,
violet

Je suis americaine

Yesterday a few friends and I went out on the town. We walked around near cite a bit and took some side streets to find cute restaurants and bars. At the end of the night we went to a crepe stand before getting on the metro. My friend ordered a crepe and the guy started talking to us in french. He asked why I wasn't getting anything. I joked around that I don't eat (I couldn't remember the word for broke, which was the real reason). We got to talking and he asked where we were from (he has heard us joking in English). Some one said America and he goes, "Oh... America... Television". All I could respond to that was "D'accord", ok. At least he didn't say, Oh america, fat people. After that we just sort of laughed and walked away.

More later.

Your fat television watching american,

Violet

The girl in the yellow hat

So, I have an incredibly awful class schedule. I am in class from 1 to 6 on most days, so my exploring is limited to the mornings. It's really a pain, but today I was rewarded. My friend Alexis and I went to a thrift store where I bought a very cheap and cute hat, dress and sweater. After leaving the store, I decided that I didn't want to keep the hat in the bag because I was afraid I would crush it. So, two feet out of the store I put it on. About 20 feet after that a woman came up to me and said in french, "hi, can I take a picture of you? I am a photographer from a German fashion blog and we are doing a special on hats". I said yes (of course) and she proceeded to direct me through a 15 min photo shoot. She gave me her card so I could email her for the pictures. I'm not sure if I'll make the cut for the blog (literally every item minus my watch and shoes were second hand and sometimes they don't like not having brands to print, also she said I had tense hands), but hopefully she we email me back with the pictures and I will pass them on to you. Yes, that was a dream of mine, yes I have been telling everyone I meet including the man who sold me food this evening.

New goal: Sartorialist.

Love,
Violet

Nuit Blanche

Yesterday I had a full day of traveling around with all the people in my class. This made it difficult to perform my favorite tourist activity: pretending I'm not American. Not only were we traveling around in a pack, our guide person made it a habit to stop in the middle of the Metro stations in order to explain to us, which direction we were going etc. Never in all my life did I think I would be part of a group that had to stop and do a headcount after every train, escalator, and street crossing. Needless to say it was driving me nuts. Our second guide, whose job i was to lead us to the museum, had no idea where we were or where we were going. She would ask multiple people and then announce in English to the rest of the group, that we were indeed getting on the right train. Luckily the lack of food and multiple wine stops were making me increasingly more forgiving. After a full day of group wandering, some people were going to go to bed and I was going to be one of them but I forced myself to go out and see nuit blanche, a full night multiple location art expo which felt a lot like Soho's fashion's night out. I was so glad I went. There were so many young people and so many cool exhibitions. However, because of the amount of people, all the transportation wasn't working properly. After missing the last train at 2, by 15 mins, my friends and I spent 2 hours asking directions from people and wandering around from metro line (shut down because of an accident) to the night buses (all service suspended) to taxi stands (don't even think about trying to get in with 5 people). Eventually we just decided that we weren't going to get home that night. So after a chocolate chip muffin or two we headed for a remake of eyes wide shut. All the actors were played by one tattooed, pierced man with grillz and he was dressed in drag for every role, male and female. It was one of the strangest things that I have ever seen (twice), but the theatre was warm and we had somewhere to sit and sleep. And after all of our strife and wandering. After two showings of the 30 min movie, the metro stop opened up and as soon as we got to the platform, our train was there. Before the third showing would have ended we were home. It was almost too easy. Even though it was no the night I planned for, it certainly was an experience. Here's the link in case you want to check it out. I was in Central the whole time. http://nuitblanche.paris.fr/

More tomorrow and pictures, I promise.
Love,
Violet

Rib Karma

As some of you may or may not know, I may or may not have allegedly indirectly resulted in my dear mother breaking two of her ribs, allegedly. But I did not get off scott free, oh no. Walking down the street with two friends, recounting some witty anecdote, I was stopped in my tracks by one of the numerous posts on the sidewalk. By stopped in my tracks, I mean I squarely walked into one of them without noticing it at all. I blamed the jet lag and the fact that the post was exactly the right height that it would be invisible to me when looking straight ahead, but after the wind was knocked out of me and my top two right ribs suspiciously hurt, I was pretty sure it was Karma at work. Don't fret. Nothing is broken.

Be tee dubs: Happy birthday Gandhi.

Love,

Violet

Je suis arrivée

मैं परिस में हूँ। So far, more Hindi is coming to mind than French, but I'm sure that will change. I am in the process of moving into my room. Each dorm building is named after a place and the building follows the theme. Of course Javi is in the Maison des Provences De France, a beautiful big brick building with a beautiful view of the equally classic building next to it. Where do I live, you may ask? Let me tell you. I live in the Maison du Camboge. How would that look, you might be wondering? Like an oppressive small cement box, with (bordering on racist) dragons, also made out of concrete, guarding the entrance. The campus in all is beautiful, so I don't really have any complaints. And, you know, there is one big benefit of living in the ugliest building. I have the best view.

More later.

love,
Violette