Day 4- Sunday 30 May

I wore a hole in a sock today. I have never walked so much in my life.

So, trying to be a bit shorter for your attention spans, n'est-ce pas? Woke up, got out and went to the street market, and bought a kiwi and a box of strawberries, because I was told to try them. True to what I'd heard, they did seem to be sweeter than the ones that you got in the United States, but this may be because it's been a fair while since I've had one. The big thing we did today was a student group self-tour, where we followed directions given to us to see some more major monuments that we hadn't covered on the walking tour the day before. First, I made my group go to the street market, because unbelievably they hadn't been yet, and we shared a meat pastry, an apricot pastry, a chicken kabob and an unbelievably fresh piece of quiche that was amazing. Went to Notre Dame again, because the others hadn't been there, and then to Hotel de Ville, where in its courtyard a promotional event for the French Open [tennis] was being held; there was a large screen projecting it, temporary courts set up where you could wait in a long line to play a game of tennis, a kid's court and other smaller activities. It was really bizarre. After that, more walking around historic places that won't mean too much, got back to the hotel and found that the program director had dropped us off some raspberry pastries [haven't eaten mine yet, it's staring at me], then went out for dinner.

While a group member was using an internet cafe, I took a quick tour of the Luxembourg garden, which had one large pool and was surrounded by very stately houses, or possibly museums, it's hard to say sometimes. I think I liked it better than les Tuileries, though it did not have a round pond with kids floating sail boats in it. More people were playing tennis in this park, some crazy good older guys and an eight-year-old girl who kicked butt. Then, dinner in a cafe about half-and-half tourists and Frenchies, and this was fun; I had creme brule with raspberries in it and split a plate of escargot, and both were reaaaaally good, dudes. The creme brule had a stranged cooked sugar topping, and I'm told the inside is custard, but it tasted like pudding better than any pudding I'd had before, and the escargot was nice, like gum, you could just keep chewing it and wouldn't bite into any fat like you would find in beef or chicken, and it was flavored with garlic and something that made it lime green. Got a bit turned around coming back, no biggie, while finding the apartment that two of the students were going to move into, got back to the hotel and found that hole. Market food, pastry, escargot and creme brule; today was mostly a day of good food :)

Day 3- Saturday 29 May

The big thing that we did today was a 4-hour walking tour; we started at St Michel, the central metro of the Latin Quarter, brushed past Notre Dame, down the Seine and saw a Space Invaders mini-mosaic that is apparently a global anonymous art effort, saw bullet holes in a building from the Revolution, across Pont Neuf, past people selling books and posters along the Seine, down eventually to the Louvre pyramid, the first time I'd seen it, to a Starbucks, down Jardin des Tuileries where kids were floating primitive sailboats in the Round Pond and other kids were playing soccer and people with blue and yellow mohawks were screaming and blowing horns in big groups and waving flags because there was going to be a big rugby match and they were everywhere, to Place de la Concorde with the current navy headquarters and gilded lampposts and the place where they used to have the guillotine [1,200 were killed in that square, and apparently people used to avoid it because of the smell, which would be really saying something in revolutionary Paris], then up a bit up les Champs-Elysees [or Elysian Fields, the ancient paradise where Greek heroes would rest to wait for their loved ones] not the really famous bit, the bit with trees and huge and hugely expensive houses behind iron gates topped in gilded spikes, you know, then a turn south to le Grand Palais and le Petit Palais, and the tour was over.

Take a breath.

Then I went off on my own down the Champs Elysees, because the rest were heading south and that didn't suit me, amidst crowds of yellow and blue clad and painted rugby fans, only now they were hanging out of their cars as well, up the shopping bit this time, where men in suits stood at the doors of perfume stores and people packed into Disney and Nike and other places you wouldn't know that I don't know and can't remember the names of. I stopped momentarily to witness about 500 people rollerblading down the main drag with a police escort, of course, before going on and seeing some kind of military ceremony completely surrounding the tomb of the unknown soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe. There were about 200 of these guys, and then a marching band showed up, and I asked a lady what was going on but only caught the phrase 'tomb of the unknown soldier,' which I already knew about, and that was that. Apparently you can go up into the Arc, but I'm not sure why you would do this, as there don't seem to be windows ....

Walked around, around, around, before it began to pour, then took a severly crowded metro back to the hotel, where one of my roommates was lying down feeling sorry for herself and I discovered that the strange burning smell in our room was coming from my power adapter. Went to the epicerie [grocery store], and am now eating fig newtons from the plane, because they're about to go bad, and a weird drink called Lychee that I thought was coconut but tastes more like, I dunno, an albino apple. Google tells me it's a fruit grown in south China, so I can't describe it better.

Random stuff about France- in a restaurant, even a dinky one where you just order a can of something and a sandwich, they will always give you a glass, or if you order water, just for yourself, the water will come in a small glass pitcher, and they will give you a cup. The epicerie was cool, and the entire thing could have fit in a Publix wine section- there are no morbidly obese people in France, because they couldn't fit down the aisles [or rather, these people do not do their own shopping]. The frozen food section was about a third the length of the store and about as long as Tori, and outside there were some fruit and vegetables, but no raw fish.

Covering Days 1 & 2

1. The first thing that I have ever ordered in France turned out to be raw salted fish. See, I knew what everything else on the appetizer menu was, and I knew that I didn't like any of them [salmon salad, for example, or duck pate with peppers], so I went with the one I couldn't translate. It was a filet, with bones, served with cold potato chunks [cooked] and salad in an odd dressing. This has been one of the stronger experiences so far.

2. More rationally, all of the flights went okay, though I had to run 56 gates to make the Paris connection. Here is my view outside terminal C2 in Charles de Gaulle; you can see a man smoking [one way to identify the true French] and general craziness. Their airport made almost zero attempt to be aesthetic, which was really different, but they would give you ten minutes of free parking. 3. This is the view outside my temporary lodgings, looking west-ish if I lean out. The day I got to Paris it was raining on and off, but that's okay. I had a few hours until the fateful dinner, so I went walking with my temporary roommate. This seems to be a great time of the year to visit- not too many obvious tourists at all, and everything is in bloom. Coming to the hotel, I got to see a lot of the districts of Paris, which are surprisingly different from one another, and got a bit of a feel for the place. On a few corners I saw places selling plants, flowers, mostly, and every building has at least one window with a window box or balcony outside it full of flowers. Most have several, and almost every window has some kind of railing to hang things off it.

4. So what are the odds that the day I arrive in Paris there's a protest march in the square outside my hotel? In addition to the transportation worker's strike that started up that day, this march was going on protesting the French government's wanting to up the retirement age two or three years.

























5. We did a boat tour on the Seine the next day, and I quite liked that- it started on the west end of Ile de la Cite, below Pont Neuf, and guys, uploading pictures is a total pain, so I'll have to show you all whenever I get back. Anyways, the weather was great, a few clouds, nice breeze; we went west first, up past the Eiffel to Ile des Cygnes, I think it's called, then back down past the National Assembly, their courthouse, then Notre Dame, around Ile St Louis, etc. After that, we split up. I exchanged some money in the Latin Quarter, so named because people used to speak Latin there, and it's been the student area for over 300 years or something, very cool.

[4.5 Forgot to mention that while I was walking about in the morning I ran into a street fair with stalls full of fruit, vegetables, what you would expect, raw fish, a stand that sold fried things, and also jewelry and packages shirts, rows of the same kind of shirt, headscarves; most of the people shopping were older, and my program director's response was rather logical- everyone else was either working or at school, or maybe American like me]

6. THEN I went to Notre Dame, which for an atheist was surprisingly moving, and I liked it a lot. I actually caught the first part of a mass, too, with the archbishop of Paris [I think] leading worship with a small choir [about 8 people]. I took a short video of it, and haven't checked the sound out yet but I'll show it to you guys eventually. THEN I walked around the two islands, and sat on the banks of the Seine where the real French were hanging out, eating and talking and kissing and talking some more, and THEN I walked to the Eiffel Tower, which took a long time, and hung out there until the lights came on. It has sparkle lights sometimes, which I never knew. By the time I got back to the hotel, it was 11.30 and I had another roommate, Jackie, and the original one had left for a hotel [I get the distinct impression she's used to better].