But I can at least get caught up with the CSL of last week. It can pretty much be summed up as: Good coffee, bad scone, not cozy. There, that was hard.

Afterward, I went to the Causeway Coastal Market that happens in the courtyard of St. Patrick’s on the second Saturday of every month. I found an artisan coffee roaster who grinds the beans on-site. It was a bit strange, this huge grinder under a flimsy tent. I got 250g of the “Komodo Dragon” roast specially ground for use in a French press. I don’t know whether it’s due to not having snobby-quality coffee regularly since August, or whether this is just that amazing, but dang. I’m having trouble limiting myself to one-a-day on this stuff. This could quickly become an addiction…

In other news, I’ve started baking again. I had to invest in a food scale, and I’ve been relying on UK recipes with weighed measurements, since I still haven’t even seen measuring cups for sale here. I always thought it would be a bigger pain to have to weigh all the stuff, but it’s actually a lot easier… Maybe they do know what they’re doing. It’s also a lot neater. I don’t have to clean up flour at all.

Also, it’s really fun to make peanut butter cookies for people who have never had peanut butter before.

It’s not fun having professors who say they’ll email you documents and then finally send them to you a week later, the night before a class, and are upset that no one has them the next morning. So there’s a cultural commonality.

Look at my pretty campus:
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This particular coffee shop, I now know, is a seat-yourself restaurant. You sit, you get situated, and the server pounces on you to see what she can get you. Or you can be like me and order at the counter when you walk in, and have them tell you to take a seat first. I’m so glad that France was first in the order of travels so that I’m used to being a fool at this point. At least now I’m a fool with a vocabulary and grasp of grammar beyond that of kindergartners. Although, at times, there’s still a language barrier. I asked for a scone, and the woman asked if I wanted “plen, frit, or chehreh” in rapid-fire. I had to ask her to repeat twice before I understood. I told her I wanted “froot.”

I chose a seat by the window and wrote and read while I sipped my coffee and ate the scone. I’m liking this place; anyplace that puts up with my American antics deserves a repeat, I think. Plus, the table was in the sun, and that never hurts. Once again, I paid at the register when I was ready to leave. I’m still getting used to that.

Plus…right next door to “the belfry café” is “the belfry deli,” which sells gourmet cheeses and bread and jams…and coffee. When I’m out of coffee, I’m going there to get the perfect grind for my new best bud. View image

We spend a lot of time together. See, I’m making friends here…

Picture courtesy of www.bodum.co.uk

"Live!" as Nicolas so graciously shouted it while rattling an imaginary Parisian shopkeeper in his hands. And as Jean-Mari so bluntly said, “I hate French people,” complete with a flat voice and dull expression.

So Ireland is full of enlightenments.

Yes, I’ve decided, here in the land of coffee and scones*, that every Saturday I will visit a coffee shop and note what makes it worthwhile, what detracts, and whether I’ll be revisiting.

First up is Lily D’s. A corner shop that faces Bibi’s Shoe Boutique. When walking past the first time, I didn’t know which one to examine more closely, the shoes or the coffee. I decided to check out the shoes then and check out the coffee on Saturday.

When I walked up to the shop on Saturday, I thought it was closed. It was dark, and no one was seated. Luckily, an older man just in front of me peeked in and entered, so I gathered that it was open. It turns out he was a regular (I think – people here tend to just start a conversation as if in the middle, so he and the barista might have been speaking for the first time, and I wouldn’t be the wiser), and they chatted it up for a bit before the barista, who looked to be in her mid-thirties turned to me. I ordered a coffee and a wheaten scone, and she told me to take a seat and she’d bring it to me. I chose a small seat by the window and looked around.

Even on the inside, the shop was dark. One light shone on the pastry case that was half-filled, and the walls were painted black. Although this contrasted nicely with the white orchids placed in old diner-style salt shakers on each table, it still left the room a bit cold. I took out my book and started reading and thanked the barista when she brought my coffee and scone.

The coffee was served in a tall glass, which fit the mood, as far as I could sense it. Unfortunately, the drink was a bit…acrid, if I may, and the scone could have done with a bit of toasting, or at least warming. It didn’t stop me from finishing everything, but I had to leave when the hand that was holding the book became numb from the cold.

I liked the payment system, however, in that I went to the register when finished to pay. I like little honor system things like that. In addition, it seems to be populated by regulars, as several older people came in during my time, and greeted everyone inside with familiar cries.

Will I go again? Not given how many bustling shops I passed in order to reach Lily D’s. However, I think the place would be a much wiser choice during the warmer summer months. Given the other man’s hesitation to enter, I think maybe the shop is usually a bit livelier, but given my limited amount of time here (and the precedent set by Dublin), I’ll seek elsewhere this Saturday.

*It’s true: what used to be the land of tea and crumpets, according to the British Coffee Association, is “now a nation of coffee drinkers…In some regions…coffee has already become the most frequently consumed beverage, consumed almost twice as frequently as tea.” Of course, this is also the organization that dismisses as myth the dehydrating and addictive effects of coffee, so I don’t know how well-informed they might be. Check it out at http://www.britishcoffeeassociation.org.

In any case, I haven’t seen crumpets for sale anywhere.

Which sort of flows into my reason for my second justification for coming to Ireland. This one I saved for myself, not including it in my application essays. I thought that Ireland would lessen the culture shock of returning home. France, in theory, was Europe penultimate. America is…American. Ireland is Europe, but not continental. They speak English, but they still have narrow streets and townhomes with brightly painted doors. It’s a compromise, right?

Wrong.

I think that coming directly from America to Ireland would not have been an extraordinarily traumatic transition. A few surprises here and there, like cars that continually surprise you from the other side, but not like France, where a strange French woman jabbers at you to eat more cheese that she left in the pantry for the past two nights.

But coming to Ireland from France, is stranger story altogether. Strangers smile at me on the street. People say without fail, “That’s lovely,” when I give them the correct change. There are so many coffee shops that I don’t know what to do to myself. I have never seen a dispute. I heard a belligerent horn today, and when I looked up, a man was gesturing furiously to the trash pickupmen (trashmen? What do you call them? trash guys?) who were blocking the lane. I looked at the lead man, and he was waving hugely at the motorist. “Aye, Harol’, b’gone, ye big rascal!” he shouted, and then they pointed and laughed at each other. And then he noticed me on the sidewalk waiting to get by, and he moved the trash bin out of my way and stepped to one side, saying to “pass roi’ troo.” So I did, trying to decide whether Coleraine is a small town, or if Northern Ireland is a small country. The Borough of Coleraine has 57000 residents, but I still can’t shake the mentality of infinite time and patience. And that, I believe, is the biggest shock, coming from France. As a foreigner, I’m treated with smiles and respect, rather than with the impersonality of protocol.

Number 1 shock: View image

I’m getting way ahead of myself, and I recognize that, but I don’t think that I can ever catch up on everything since that last post. And I don’t even want to. It’s a secret/ too lackluster to merit attention. Like a seven-hour layover that requires a transfer to another airport. Don’t tell me Heathrow isn’t flying to Dublin today. I don’t buy it.

But all of that is history, and now I’m sitting in my dorm at the University of Ulster at Coleraine, Northern Ireland, trying to stay engaged in the world, as I watch the sun setting behind the woods outside my windows. It’s 4:17pm. I’ve been awake for a little over three hours. Just trying to get through these two weeks, until the rest of the students get through with their exams. It’s really hard to make friends during exams week.

And now: pictures. Well, really, just two. I found my future home.
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And here’s the view from it. Why I’m going to own it.
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In short, it’s Christmas.

Yesterday those of us not too stressed from multiple papers all gathered at Amadou’s again. I had finally pushed through the massive essay I had to write for my language class, and my “soutenance,” my defense, as one defends a thesis, is not for another week. All I have left to do on it is fix the grammatical errors and have it bound. It was a call for celebration, and celebrate I did with all of that wonderful cheese and bread and salad and lemon tart and coffee and cookies and banana bread. Never mind that I have to write four more papers, three of which are due by Thursday. But two are in English, so no big deal, right? France has definitely changed my perspective, perhaps not in a good way.

I finally left Amadou’s at six, because I wanted to try to get to a store before it closed at seven. I couldn’t find the store, but I ended up wandering around centre-ville soaking up all of the Christmas decorations that were planted overnight. It was night by the time I was in the city, and all of the lights were glittering over the piétons, the pedestrian streets. Loudspeakers were discretely playing Christmas carols, a big-band version of “Angels We Have Heard on High.” In English. And I wondered how many of the people on the street knew the words.

I ended up not able to find the store, not surprising given that the only indication that I had of its location was “on the street between the cathedral and the château.” So I picked one of four streets and headed down, rewarded with a fantastic view of the fountain shooting arcs of brilliant water high in the square. But no store anywhere. So I decided to go to the Place de Ralliement (where they guillotined people during the Revolution, but which is now the big meeting place in the town) where I had heard about the Christmas market that started yesterday. I took a few more pedestrian streets to get there, and they were all decorated in the same manner as the first. All of the French kids were running around, high on excitement of the beginning of the Christmas season and all of the Nutella crêpes and chocolat chaud that was being sold out of little huts. One mother was holding onto the hand of her three-year-old as he toddled between her and his sister, ricocheting between their legs and annoying them both. Then he stopped suddenly, and his mother almost tore his arm off in her surprise, and I almost ran him over in mine. He pointed up to the lights with his free arm and said, “Maman, regarde le ciel!”

And I got this huge lump in my throat as I was walking through this mass of people thronging the street. I was finally able to understand a kid. I wasn’t being targeted as a foreigner. I passed a lady who spoke as I breezed past, and when I responded with “Pardon?” as I always do, she launched into an explanation about how she was talking her he husband across the street. I understood it. And she didn’t blow me off.

It’s dommage that I have to leave in two weeks. It’s good: I’m ready to leave, in the sense of “get me out of here before I turn into them.” But it’s strange that so soon it will be over. It’ll be hard to find the opportunity to speak in French again, and I know that I’ll miss it. It’s also ironic that at this time when all I want to do is wander the streets, soaking up every last nuance of this city, I have to sit at my computer, writing papers.

But even this has taken on a pleasant aspect, as I’m working in front of my window, of which I opened the shutters to let the light in, and watching a cat climbing up one of the neighbor’s houses. This cat wanders the square every single day, but I don’t think he ever leaves it. Impressive, given the size of the square. Now he’s sitting in the flower box on the third floor of the house, soaking up the sun and eating the dead geraniums. Hope he doesn’t die. I forget which plants are poisonous for animals.

Also, on my way to the MarchéPlus this morning, I was texting Jen and plowed through some steaming dog poo on the sidewalk. So if you’re ever in France, be sure to take walking seriously: don’t multitask. And get out of the way of old people. They can get nasty.

Alright, back to papers now.

Ah, who am I kidding? I’ll probably just youtube Britney Spears some more. Gotta get my America fix.

Best and Worst #1: Things on the sidewalks

The worst:
France (well, Paris at least) has professional pooper-scoopers. This isn’t a worst. This is a best. Or rather, it would be a best if they actually did their jobs (they must take frequent strikes, just like the TGV people). Instead, you always have to watching where you’re walking to avoid walking smack into the piles of nastiness all over the sidewalks. I think I’ve figured out why no one in France acknowledges each other: no smiles to strangers, no nods hello. They’re too busy watching the sidewalk, making sure they don’t set their designer boots and flats into such loveliness. I was walking home from the park the other day, and my mind was wandering, trying to plan how to avoid contact with French for the rest of the day, when I stepped right in one. Even more frustrating was the fact that I knew that particular pile was there because I had passed it on my way to school every day for several days. But, being a dog owner, I just sighed and looked around for some grass to try to clean my shoe up with so Mme would let me come back into the house. And that’s when I realized: no grass. Right.

And if that wasn’t unappetizing enough (by the way, I really hope you aren’t eating right now, I should have put a warning at the heading of this post), it rains a lot here. So you have these piles of nastiness on the street for several days. They dry, then it rains and they spread, and they dry, and then it rains and they spread, and then they dry, and then it rains and rains and rains. What’s more disgusting than poo all over the sidewalk? Twice-reconstituted moldy puddles of poo all over the sidewalk.

The best:
Snails. You have to watch out not to squish them too, but they’re cute and much more pleasant to encounter. Unless you step on them and crack their shells (Lindsey).

I forgot to bring a picture of the cute little critter outside my house today. Coming tomorrow.

As I said before, I’m lucky that Mme is so nice and gives me four meals a week instead of the bare minimum three. False. It turns out that this was a big misunderstanding and that she thought my program was going to reimburse her for the extra meal. False again. If she gives me extra meals and chooses to charge (a practice which I fully support, by the way), it’s me who has to pay. I already knew that, which is what makes the entire situation even more frustrating. I have been repeatedly asking her if it’s alright that I’m getting an extra meal, and she keeps responding that really, it’s good, she wants to do it, but to be sure to tell my director (“Mme Sue”) that I’m getting that extra meal. And then I say, but why? Why does it matter if Mme Sue knows? and then she says because her paper says that she only has to give three dinners a week. And then she changes the subject. Finally, in a tizzy, she called up Sue to tell her directly that she has been giving me more meals, and Sue told her that the program doesn’t care, that she should take that up with me. Which she did, as soon as I walked in that night. Thank goodness Sue had prepared me.

ANYWAY…she still wants me to eat with her four times a week, but she wants me to pay 5€. It’s a really good price. If I went to a restaurant and I got this food for that price, it would instantly be my favorite restaurant. But the thing is, it’s not a restaurant. It’s…kind of like my home, in the tiniest way…so I politely turned her down on that proposition (“politely” in a foreign language means “I think I actually communicated clearly”) and told her that I really prefer to buy my own ingredients and cook. I like the experience way more than the product (except for cheesecake: what a lot of work, but it’s all worth it in the end. And pumpkin pie. I don’t think any culinary experience could top that product.). Which brings me to cooking, which was my mother’s question, and incidentally brings me to shopping for food, which was Marte’s question.

So I had the whole conversation with Mme about kitchen use and whether it would be alright to cook for the nights when I don’t eat with them. I don’t know what it is, but sometimes we do not communicate well. It’s a simple sentence in French: Est-ce que ce serait d’accord si j’utilisais la cuisine pendant les soirs où je ne dîne pas avec toi? (Would it be alright if I used the kitchen on the nights I don’t eat with you ?) It’s not perfect, sure, but I don’t think I mucked it up too badly. She looked at me and said, “That’s right, you eat here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.” (This was before, obviously.) And I looked back at her and said, “Yes…but the other days…” And she looked at me and said, “Yes?...” (As an undisclosed wonderful person said when I was relaying this story, “Aha! That’s how the French stay so skinny! They don’t eat on the weekends.”) So I finally got the point across, and then she asked me what my friends here are doing, and I said that it depended on the family, and then she asked me if they paid, and I said that depended on the family too (the sad part is that I would probably pay her 5€ just to use the kitchen). And then she said that she didn’t think that would be necessary. I think I really threw her for a loop. I don’t think her previous students had ever asked her for that.

So I got to cook last weekend. It was a celebration. I went to the Géant Casino (the French Walmart, I’m ashamed to say) five minutes up the street and bought groceries on Friday night and came back to the house and stewed up some tomato with zucchini, shallot and spinach, and then added the concoction to couscous. It was a challenge though, I have to admit. Chopping vegetables without a cutting board: nigh on impossible. Mme was watching me cutting up the tomato in my hand, and she said, “I like watching you cook. You’re slow. You’re never stressed.” I tried to contradict her, but I was concentrating too hard. Then she left the kitchen to continue getting ready for her dinner party, and then I sliced my finger open. But only once, during the whole time. I’m like a pro. And then when I was ready to eat, she looked at my Tupperware container of couscous and vegetables and muttered, “I wish I were eating that.” Instead of the elaborate cheese tray she had prepared, and the tarts she had made during the day, and the cookies that she had laid out on the serving tray. I have to admit though, I’m glad I was eating it too. Then I asked if it would bother her if I put the leftovers in the fridge, and she told me no, but that I needed to wait until they were cold, or else they would break the fridge. Okay…

The next day, we had plans to make lunch at Amadou’s house, so we all (meaning, most of us), went to the Saturday market to get provisions. I love the market; it's taken the prized position of the coffee shop/scone experience of Salem. For those who know me in Oregon, that's a big step of committment. But it's a great way to start the weekend, and to get picnic fixings for lunch. View image
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It turns out that Amadou doesn’t know how to cook, although he proudly showed me the jar of vegetarian spaghetti sauce he had bought when we all went over. So he opened up his professionally-equipped kitchen to us, and we stormed it. We had been dreaming about the meal all week. We all get fed really well with our families, but there’s something to be said for having something in mind to eat, and then eating it. We decided that everyone should be in charge of a particular part of the meal, which wouldn’t really be that expensive. Lindsey took salad (she stole it from me, actually), Jen took the side dish, Susan took the bread and the cheese, and I took dessert, and that left the main course (ie meat) for Casey and Matt to split (to be honest, we kind of dictated). Except then Casey decided not to come, and Matt decided that he would much rather bring pains aux chocolat, avocados, and shrimp, which doesn’t usually work for a main course.

It all worked out though. Lindsey made a salad with mêche lettuce, apples, and craisins, and she and Susan collaborated to make a raspberry vinaigrette. Jen made roasted vegetables, with carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and onions. It was the first time we’d had roasted vegetables since…well, probably since last winter. Mention “légumes rôtis” here and people look at you like you’re stupid a.) because of your accent, b.) because that’s probably not a good translation, and c.) because they don’t do that here. Mme makes boiled potatoes occasionally, but the others hadn’t even had potatoes here until Jen made them. View image

Then Susan toasted some wheat bread from the market, along with chèvre so fresh and soft, it was just like cream cheese, and Amadou let us use his favorite: Gruyère swiss from a specific vendeur at the market. This cheese is seriously the best I think I’ve tasted; it at least ties with Cougar Gold. Matt sautéed some shrimp, and served the avocados (and the pains aux chocolat). Amadou presented us with a rôtisserie chicken. We all ate our fill. Then the men watched some “football” while the girls did the dishes and prepared the dessert. I decided to make a compôte of apples and pears to be served with petit Breton beurre cookies that I had found at the market, 12 for 2€, which isn’t even that much, given the sudden economic downturn. We served it with some coffeeAnd all was good. And although Amadou swears he can’t cook, he can peel fruit like none other. Wow.

Willamette, you have prepared some good cooks. You should consider starting a culinary academy. Chefs always need some liberal arts training.

So I hope that answers the questions.

It wasn’t love at first sight. It was more formal, more platonic. Kind of like meeting the son of one of your mother’s friends and then reaffirming that you really prefer hanging out with your own friends. I might be a bit biased though, since one of the first things I saw when walking to our hostel was a man kicking his dog to make him get off of the sidewalk, and the hollow sound of that boot hitting those ribs is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget, no matter how hard I try.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself. The adventure didn’t start there. The adventure started back in Angers, with Lindsey, Susan, and me trekking through town with all of our gear (Susan with running shoes tied to the outside of her backpack, thumping away with each stride, juxtaposing furiously against her chic leather valise in hand), trying to find the TGV station where we were supposed to meet everyone. This was made even more difficult by the fact that none of us had returned home before 2h30 the previous night. We had attended the Soirée Internationale at school, where are all of the international students create little showcase presentations of their countries. The United States chose to present a faux(I hope)-drunken rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” while deliberately mocking the stereotype that Americans make a lot of noise in a very obnoxious manner, thereby reaffirming the stereotype. I’d rather not think about it. This is just another one of those experiences that has taught me that I should get involved if I want to have a say in something. I keep learning this lesson, and then, evidently, forgetting it. I just didn’t think that something like this would happen. Did it occur to no one that this might not be a positive way to present the already volatile image of our country? Oh well. I’ve decided that I would rather be Japanese, if I just had to base my preference off of the presentations of the Soirée Internationale. They had some very awesome breakdancers, a full half of whom were female. I wonder if they could teach me how to do it.

Anyway, point being, we were really tired because we went out on the town after the Soirée ended a little after ten. So Lindsey and I were trudging after Susan, hoping that she knew where she was going. Turns out, she kind of did. Almost. She stopped to ask directions of a real “treasure” though. A drunk guy hanging out in front of a parking garage. He was very nice and very honest about the fact that he’d had a bit (read: a lot) too much to drink at 13h30 on a Saturday. He kept tugging on his nose, which I learned signals drunkenness in France, evidently because your nose is red, like someone’s been pulling on it? I guess. But he led us to the station, which happened to be across the street from where we had stopped to ask him. So we thanked him and headed in. And got our tickets and our train and our seats and our destination. Not that interesting. It was fast.

And then we reached Paris, where we had to transfer from our train to a metro line to get to our hostel. Which surpassed all expectations. I mean, they even provided towels, and a free breakfast every morning. Well, “free” in the sense that it was included in the cost of the room, but still, it was a good breakfast. Yogurt with honey, a baguette with chocolate-hazelnut spread, and a pseudo-mocha of hot chocolate and coffee mixed together. That’s what I had, at least. Everyone differed a bit.
After getting to the hostel on Saturday night a little after five, we took a half hour to freshen up before heading out to l’Arc de Triomphe. Jen figured out the metro system, and the rest of us followed dutifully, reminded multiple times by Amadou to watch out for our bags and ourselves. It was on this metro ride that I caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. You’re zipping along on one of the above-ground portions of the metro, you glance away from the person you’re talking to, and VLAN! there’s the hunk of metal that you’ve waited your whole life to see. And then you squeak “Eiffel Tower!” just before the metro goes into another station for another stop, and everyone wants to kill you because no one can see it anymore. But then the metro starts again, and Summer sees the tower and gets way more excited than you would have thought possible.

And then you finally reach the end of line 6, stop Charles de Gaulle-Etoile, you stumble from your seat to make it off before the siren sounds and the doors bounce shut again. You fix your eyes on the purposeful stride of Susan and then seek out the more manageable pace of Lindsey’s purple sweater as Susan zooms on ahead as is her manner. You climb the stairs, breathe in the air of outside, and realize that l’Arc de Triomphe is ENORMOUS!

They never told me it was SO HUGE. And we managed to catch it right in the middle of evening rush hour. The place is basically a roundabout, but on an entirely different scale than I’ve ever seen: 12 streets, most with six or more lanes each, converging on the arch, teeming with traffic entering and exiting without stopping, weaving around others to get to the exit they need, no one really sure who has the right of way except for obviously THEY THEMSELVES. You don’t cross the street to get to the arch.

Instead, you descend underground once again and follow a tunnel that leads to it, and then once again you surface, but this time you’re under the arch, and you realize that they also never told you how intricate it is. And then you go up to the top of it, and once again, you marvel at the fact that you never understood how big it is, as you gaze upon la Tour Eiffel, l’Obelisque, and off in the distance, on the one conspicuous hill of Paris, Sacré Coeur shining rose in the sunset.

So that was the first night. We slept quite well.

Day 2: L’Hôtel des Invalides, le Musée de l’Armée, la Cinémathèque française, Le Voleur de bicyclette

As Matt so aptly put it, you can’t really understand divine-right rulers until you see l’Hôtel des Invalides. It’s so gaudy. Gorgeous, but absolutely gaudy. After exploring that for a while, we visited the museum that explains every aspect of the influence of Charles de Gaulle on France. We were pretty cute, all of us wandering through the darkened halls with our headphones and our receptors, listening to our individual guided tours. It was a little unnerving when I kept wandering out of the “sphere of influence” of a particular emission generator, and the voice in my hear would change abruptly to a new subject. It wasn’t that bad though, since through a strange twist of fate, I was listening to the French tour, and was understanding almost nothing. I had actually given myself permission to use the English version, since I knew Charles de Gaulle was someone to know in French history and really wanted to understand what he had done. But my English version wasn’t working, so I switched it for French, which worked like a charm, except for the fact that I couldn’t understand anything, so I’m just going to look de Gaulle up on Wikipedia or something.

After Amadou had rounded all of us up from out wanderings, we rushed back to the hostel, grabbed lunch, changed to slightly nicer clothes, and headed back out to visit the film museum, since the class that we’re taking with Amadou is about cinema as a medium for exploring transnational identities and relations in the banlieue, the French equivalent in some sense of inner-city. After that, we went to a bistro to wait for our 19h00 showing of Le Voleur de bicyclette, an Italian film from the fifties that was subtitled in French.

And after that, we searched for a restaurant in the St. Germain area (where I had my first view of la Cathèdrale de Notre Dame de Paris, lit on its island and by a passing Batobus), somewhere special for Summer’s birthday. I don’t know if we ever stumbled on something special, but she managed to make it so by ordering escargots for the first time and discovering tarte aux pommes, her new favorite. In relation to snails, she gave a positive review, stating that “they don’t taste the way you would think a snail would.” Not sure what that would be, but whatever.

After dinner (which ended at 23h00), some people wanted to go out to celebrate Summer’s birthday, but others were ready to get back and to sleep. However, we couldn’t figure out the metro system and ended up going the wrong direction for a bit before correcting ourselves. Thank goodness for Jen, is all I can say, sinus infection and all. Our little adventure eventually culminated in a homeless man on a corner leading us to the next Metro station where we could make our transfer to the correct line. It only took us an hour to get home. We could definitely have walked it faster.

Day 3: Latin Quarter, le Louvre, la Tour Eiffel

The Latin Quarter didn’t actually end up happening, since we couldn’t find anyone who could show us around to the important parts, but we walked through it on our way to the Louvre, which again, is way bigger than you think it would be.

Day 4: Orsay, Branly, Montmartre

Day 5: Notre Dame, Shakespeare and Company, Montmartre, Angers again

There we go. Sorry I skimped on the last days. I'll try to do play catch-up later, but I doubt it'll happen. Hope you all have a wonderful day/night, depending on whatever time zone you find yourself in.

Things that I miss from the U.S.

1.) Having a clue of what’s going on at any given time: I don’t consider myself an intuitive person by any means, but at home, I at least have the advantage of reading between the lines about half of the time. The other half, I’m lost. Here, I’m lost all the time. Mme told me that her daughter, Patricia, would be throwing a fête at the house this Saturday night just for fun, but what I didn’t pick up on, I guess, is that the entire family would be coming home for it. I woke up on the morning of the fête, and there was someone living in the empty room across from mine. Two someones. Her son, Christophe, and his girlfriend, Claire, who’s my new best friend because she told Christophe to slow down when he was talking to me. She understands my needs.
Also, I really need to vacuum my room. Do I just take the vacuum and go to it? Do I ask permission to use the vacuum? Will they think it’s weird that I’m asking for their blessing to do housework? Will they think it’s weirder if I just hijack their equipment? If I ask, will I have to suffer a tutorial, about how I need to press the button to turn it on and press it again to turn it off, like I had to for the porch light? If I don’t ask, will I blow up the house?
Only one way to find out.

2.) Raiding the refrigerator (likewise, Having a refrigerator): The time has come that our host families now give us every breakfast, but only three dinners a week. I’m incredibly lucky in that Mme is alone during the week and has no desire to eat alone, so I get dinner Monday through Thursday. However, once her husband comes home on Friday afternoon through Monday morning, I’m out of luck. (I really like her husband. I’m kind of bummed that I never get to eat with him now, but I understand. He’s definitely not a vegetarian, so making meals for the two of us together would increase the difficulty exponentially.) Anyway, a fridge would come in handy over the weekend for storing yogurts or leftovers or other healthy items. But I don’t know if I’m allowed any kitchen/fridge privileges, and I feel that it’s a little awkward to ask (see Thing I Miss #1), given how little the fridge is.

3.) Natural California raisins (Golden or otherwise): If you look on the ingredient list of a box of raisins in the U.S., you’ll read “California raisins,” or something to that effect (and sunshine!). Here, it’s still “Raisins secs” (dry grapes), but there’s also the “agent d’enrobage,” which is always some sort of vegetable oil. It seems very not-French, adding fat to a fat-free item, but I guess that’s also the idea behind fruit tarts, so touché.

4.) Chocolate chips: Guittard Semisweet, how I long for thee. There’s something so different about little morsels of chocolate in comparison to a big hunk of chocolate. Although a plus to big hunks of chocolate is that they can contain little morsels of other things.

5.) Recommended serving sizes: They tell you how many Calories and nutrients are in 100g grams, but then it’s up to you to determine how many hundreds of grams are in the package, and to divide them up into what you believe is the best serving size for you. I’ve discovered that it’s easier to just eat the whole package, in some cases. Mostly in cookie (gâteaux) cases. There are some packages that explicitly state the recommendation, or contain individual packages of 100 grams (or whatever is recommended), but they aren’t very common. It’s possible that I’m missing something though, like “suggestion de presentation” has to do with quantity, not with aesthetics.

6.) Coffee shops: A whole restaurant devoted to coffee and tea. With a scone thrown in for good measure. The only scone I’ve seen here was at a grocery store, beside the prepackaged half-baked baguettes. But they really know how to do chocolats chauds here.

7.) Payless Shoesource: Taking a break from food nostalgia, it was nigh on impossible to find comfortable, affordable, classy, vegetarian black boots with zippered sides, not too much heel and only ankle high. Or maybe I’m just a tidge bit picky (take out the “affordable” and the “vegetarian,” and you have a vast array laid out before you). I finally found some that were all of the above except perhaps “affordable” at 39€90. Check them out: http://www.batashop.fr/fr/Femme/boots/Talonplat/produit/5016099.htm A month ago, I wouldn’t even have considered them at that price. Now, I told myself to think about it, after a month of lusting after plenty of leather boots that start around 90€. That night, the blister that I accrued in Paris (from my $7.00 Payless Airwalks that are too small (should have brought the Pumas)) woke me at 3h00 with what felt like flames burning from the inside out. I tried to ignore it, but it was impossible, so I got out of bed and spent a half hour to forty-five minutes doctoring it, soaking it and cleansing it with Cetaphil and applying a Bandaid (that’s how you know it’s serious) and finally went back to sleep around 4h30. I had lots of time to ponder those boots. Lindsey and I went back the next day, I hmmed and hawed about it some more, and then bought them after a long process of decision-making, involving going to another store to buy different socks to try them on. So, even though Payless got me into this situation, I still miss it, and how they offer decent quality for ridiculously low prices (although, have you noticed that the prices are getting less ridiculous? I have.).

8.) Walking on the sidewalk without worrying about getting run over: People drive on the sidewalks, or at least what I take for being a sidewalk. It’s probably just a slightly raised street that people happen to walk on.

9.) Certain people and another: You know. And being able to call those people spontaneously, without setting up a date and time, for which I’m invariably late. Let’s take a moment to ponder the cuteness of that other, shall we?
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Things I thought I would miss terribly, but I don’t

1.) Peanut butter: Nutella is dirt cheap here, especially the off-brand variety, and it comes in any quantity imaginable. The best part? It’s not even supposed to be refrigerated (see Thing I Miss #2).

2.) Driving: I miss the car, not the transport (see Unforeseen Love #1).

Things I love that were unforeseen

1.) Walking everywhere: Despite certain drawbacks (see Things I Miss #6), it’s great to walk everywhere, mostly because the fact that everyone walks or bikes means that everything worth doing is within easy reach. The mall is 10 minutes to the north, the little market is five minutes to the west, school is 20 minutes in whatever direction school is. For a longer walk, you can go to the other side of the river and walk along the lake where the swans live. Yeah, that’s right. We have swans, just past the castle.

2.) Fresh baguettes and cheese: Mme buys a new baguette every couple of days, always from a different boulanger. When I told her that I’d heard that it was important to be faithful to one’s charcuteur and traiteur and boulanger and vendeur, she said no, that they all make things slightly differently, so people go to different ones for variety. However, she also classified herself as “atypique,” although not in reference to that. Actually, that was Hélène who said that, in relation to the whole family. “Nous sommes vraiment atypiques.” (Funny, since they seem so traditionally French to me.) I told her that I would fit right in. So, bread. It’s good. I like bread.

3.) Fresh fruit: Most notably, the grapes, which still have their seeds. I love that crunch. I try to explain about seedless fruits of America, and no one understands what I’m talking about. Really, it sounds ridiculous. “Seedless? Then how do they keep growing them?” “Bien…je ne sais pas.” I just ate a big bunch of Muscat grapes for snack, crunching down on every seed. Life doesn’t get much better than that. Also, I’m discovering new varieties of fruit left and right: Reine des Reinettes apples, little green plums that I think are Reine Claudettes, or something like that, pears that I can’t keep straight in my head, but are so ripe in the stores that you can’t even carry them home. It’s all you can do to keep them together until you pay for them. Ideally, you would just pick one up, slurp it down and then pay for it. But I think they frown on that, especially since you pay by weight. You would just have to be weighed upon entry and exit of the market. It’s the only way.

4.) Friends: Moving away from food once again. I was apprehensive about coming to Angers with such a small group because I thought we would be inseparable. And we are, but the miracle is that we all get along so well, even with the other AHA students who don’t come from Willamette. Summer’s from UofO, and she tagged along on our excursion to Paris, and it was as though we had all been friends forever instead of just meeting her for the first time a month ago. I mean, granted, there were tense moments in Paris just for the reason of being literally inseparable. We went everywhere together and then came back to the same room (more on that later in the Paris post). But here, we all have our own rooms, so we can at least decompress a little between encounters and sorties before venturing out again. Lindsey and I walked to and from school together almost every day of the month of intensives, and I never got sick of her. It must have been because of her wonderfully infectious and vivacious personality (she reads this occasionally, if you were wondering), coupled with our combined enthusiasm for France and being here (I’m so glad you decided to come to Angers, Lindsey. I can’t even imagine it without you now.).

So looking back on this entry, I guess it’s a little depressing that I seem to miss so much more than I don’t, but it’s not like I spend my days pining for the States. Really, I’m happy most moments that I’m here (except truly, it’s exhausting, this whole not-having-a-clue thing. Literally exhausting. I sleep so much.). And really, I wasn’t planning on missing a whole lot of concrete qualities from home (I guess you could say I was planning on loving everything), so there’s not much that I could write for that. It's just funny what you end up missing. Like free public toilets. I forgot to add that one. That's first on the list. Let's put that in bold. FREE PUBLIC TOILETS.

One of the first views of la Tour Eiffel from the terasse of l'Arc de Triomphe upon arrival Saturday night.
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The streetlights on the way to l'Hôtel des Invalides on Sunday morning.
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The staircase of the Louvre. Don't ask me where. I got so lost.
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Shadows in Notre Dame de Paris.
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Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore across the street from Notre Dame. Anyone who has the resources available, please check and tell me if this is the bookstore that starts out Before Sunset. Mom, it's in my closet.
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Tha gelateria in Montmartre where we ate lunch on our last day before heading back to Angers. Caffé latté and nocciola...parfait.
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But truly, this is the only experience that comes to mind in which a woman has been a bit...testy. I mean, Hui-Wen, Miwa, and I (classmates, from Taiwan and Japan, respectively) had to go out into the streets to interrupt the lives of complete strangers to see how they felt about the construction of a tramway smack in the middle of the centre-ville. (It was a big project; I don't do this for fun.) All of those women (and men) were unbelievably understanding; more understanding than I would have been in similar circumstances. So there's one preconception overthrown.

But they're thin. They're stylish. I don't know how they do it. Actually, I do. They walk a lot, and in my family at least, they don't eat dessert, except for some fruit or some yoghurt with a butter cookie. For the first two weeks I was here, I was a loss as to how they manage to last between the big lunch and the supper. We don't eat until 20h00 most nights, which is eight hours after lunch for me. Eight hours that are full of concentration and then relaxing by walking several miles in centre-ville and trying to speak French to additional understanding French people. It works up an appetite. Granted, the French women don't have to concentrate on how to communicate with others, but they still walk. They have other business to attend to. How do they do it?

Then one day after school (so, like, 17h00, 5:30, getting to be dinnertime, right?), walking through the centre-ville on the way to Monoprix (to pick up snacks, bien sûr), I noticed: everone was eating. The bistros were full. People had packed the streets, devouring pastries. Children were trailing behind parents, toting their backpacks and fisting small baguettes aux pepittes de chocolat into their mouths. It was a revelation. This was how they didn't eat until so late. I had been berating myself for having a snack at what I considered to be approaching the dinner hour, when in fact, I had just fallen into what was expected. Eat a snack at five, have dinner (supper) at eight. It all made sense.

But my revelation only extended so far. So they have a snack. If they have a viennoiserie (pastry) for snack, that still begs the question: how is everyone staying so thin in this country? My only answer is that even though I see people eating the viennoiseries every day, they must not be the same people from day to day. It seems to be of utmost importance to look one's best here, and weight is the most important aspect (to the point of smoking incessantly. Not everyone smokes, but sometimes it seems like it). Take this headline from yesterday's paper: Battue pour avoir trop mangé à la cantine, and under, "Ella avait pris du 'rab' à la cantine et ne l'avait pas dit à ses parents. Parce qu'elle était un peu trop ronde, et au régime, ils ont sévèrement corrigé la fillette de 7 ans. La père a écopé de six mois de prison ferme." Roughly translated: "Beaten for eating too much at the cafeteria -- She took seconds at her school cafeteria and didn't tell her parents. Because she is supposed to be following a diet for weight reasons, they firmly reprimanded her. The father received a sentence of six months in closed prison."

It seems ridiculous. And yet, I'm glad this is in the paper. It means it's news. It doesn't happen often. And yet, it happened. I think this obsession with obesity, or having thighs that meet (okay, not true, but it seems like it sometimes), is as personal as smoking or rudeness. I was describing to Mme the other night all of the girls here who are tiny and chic in their skinny jeans and sacs à mains, and then me in the middle of them, sweaty and windblown, back aching from lugging my backpack all day. She said that guys don't like skinny girls, and that she likes to be fat (sidenote: she could gain fifty pounds and be totally healthy). Then she added that it must be refreshing to be freed from belonging to a society, at least temporarily, to observe from the outside and act the way I want to. People have expectations of the way I should behave, certainly. I should be loud and obnoxious. Which I am sometimes. But other times I'm just me. This is one of the few times in my life when I don't have to operate according to some larger network of mores. I don't have to be American, and being French is not an option. There's no way for me to fit in right now, so the best I can do is to be me.

In other news, if you're reading this, could you either comment or send me an email to let me know (unless you're my parent; I know you're reading)? I'd really like to have an idea of to whom I'm writing, if anyone.

And then the camera zoomed across the ocean to highlight American politics. When George Bush stepped stepped up to the podium to give a speech, I felt this immense surge of gratitude towards him. Never in my life have I been so happy to see him. But there he was on screen, preparing to speak English to me. I thought I would swoon. And he started talking. And then the voice-over dub started talking, and all of Bush's words were lost to me. I uttered a little cry of frustration and despair, and Mme looked over at me and chuckled.

But then the coverage continued, and everyone was dubbed. French McCain had a snippy voice, harsh and a bit pinched in the nose, while French Obama was more relaxed. Posters kept flashing up on the screen, ad hominem publicities, and the speeches targeted the opponents rather than the issues. It was typical American politics, and yet I felt a supreme discomfort in the face of such pettiness as viewed through the eyes of a foreign country.

It's obvious that Obama is favored here. And unlike in the U.S., no one is ashamed to ask you how you'll vote. It's not a private matter, as far as people I've talked to are concerned. My host family asked me my first day here. People ask you in the streets, in the stores.

Last night, I finally asked Mme what her opinion was of Sarkozy. She said that she likes him. That everyone makes mistakes, and that she's glad that he found his wife (Carla Brunei, for those who haven't been paying attention) when he did because she thinks that will make his work, and life in general, more enjoyable, more relaxed, happier. So she considers herself part of the 18% of the French who approve of the Président. I don't know if that was the real reason, or whether she was simplifying to make the notion it easy enough for me to understand. In which case, I thank her.