Picnic and other news

.... Having not yet had a picnic on Ile de la Cite on this trip, I decided to have one. So I created a Facebook event and all the people that I have met here, or knew already. It was lots of fun, and there were more than 20 of us.

RA and Frederic. Don't let him fool you; he's not normally this tan; he just got back from vacation in Corsica.

This is the view of Ile de la Cite from the river. This is what we looked like to the tour boats passing by. We were at the very tip of the island, under the weeping willow.

This was our view.

Ross/ Michel/ Michael, and Laura Leeker, fellow Auburn alums. (Am I an alum even though I'm still there?)

Girls from the foyer: Ana, Fatia, Linda, me, and Aurore.


I just now got back from a party at a new friend's house (new because I met him last night at the picnic.) Cedric invited some people over to his place before he leaves for Portugal tomorrow to do work with a race car team for a few weeks.



Check it out, David Graham. Cedric let me take a picture of this picture that he had. So you see Cedric on the left, and I need not specify who's on the right. Go team 24.

Picture of random apartment... can you imagine living up there on the top floor that covers two stories?

OK, Dr. Barry's CTSE 7930 and 4430 students, this is for you. I am going to make a culture lesson on French signs, which reveal French values of "le mot juste," politeness, formality, correctness, etc. I found this particular sign on the inside of the stall in the bathroom in the foyer. Behold a translation for the English speakers (although of course I would not be translating to my class:)

"Thank you for concentrating on leaving this space clean after your passage. You have at your disposition the flusher and the toilet brush to use without moderation."

I know, right?

Here's another really good example:


In French, the appropriate way for Kenzo to inform people that they have moved is to say, "Your boutique has had a change of address. Starting on August 6 2008, we will have the pleasure of welcoming you at 51 avenue George V."

.... whereas in English, you simply say, "New store." This illustrates how Americans value what is efficient, more than what is beautifully put.


* * *

I have been meeting people from so many different places, so I decided, Elizabeth Mills style, to make a list. I have met French speakers from the following countries:

Tunisia
Bolivia
Madagascar (yes, Sally, it's true!)
l'Ile de la Reunion
Guadeloupe
Algeria
Wales
Spain
Iran
Argentina
Canada
England
Italy

Velib et Tour de France

This post is devoted to the noble sport of biking. It will go down in two sections:
Part the first: Ruth Ann explores biking as public transportation.
Part the second: The Tour de France riders arrive in Paris!

I. And we begin. I left Paris in May of 2007, and in July of 2007, the city started installing bikes as forms of public transportation. The system is called "Velib" (velo= bike; lib= play on liberty,) and there are more than 20,000 bikes and 1,450 stations.

A map of Paris, showing all the stations. Obviously they are everywhere.

A station looks like this. You go up to the machine, insert your transportation pass if you are a native (it was more complicated for me because I don't have a European bank card, but I won't bore you with details...) suffice it to say that I took out a week's subscription to the service. So at any time during that week, I could approach any station in the city, punch in my code, and take a bike. It costs 5 euros ($7) to take out a weekly account. If you return the bike to a station in under 30 mins, you pay nothing. If your trip takes from 30-59 minutes, you pay one euro ($1.40), and it starts getting more expensive after that. Even if your trip will take more than 30 minutes, you can easily check your bike in at any station, and continue (so you don't pay anything.)

As we all know, I require my bikes to be equipped with baskets. As these are.
People using these bikes are not tourists; they are Parisians. Working people can toss their purse or briefcase in the basket, and be on their way. And, be it noted LIZ MOORE, that MANY Parisian women ride in their dresses (and heels)! So there.

So this system is fantastic and I loved using it. The only problem I encountered is that streets randomly turn into going only one way, and I don't know which ones do that. So as long as you don't find yourself in the middle of a busy intersection with cars coming at you and nowhere to go, it's great.

It is perhaps both my greatest accomplishment... or dumbest thing I've ever done... or both... that I successfully rode my bike around Etoile (the Arc de Triomphe, see below.)

Velib's slogan: "Life is more beautiful on a bike." I agree.

II. The Tour de France arrives! After 21 days, the bikers appeared in Paris for the last leg of their grueling trip. This involves doing 8 laps from Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe (pictures below to explain.)

My picture of the riders from where I was standing on the Champs-Elysees.

This is the Arc de Triomphe (where I rode my Velib bike around one day... crazy, I know.) The giant street is the Champs-Elysees. The white spot at the end of it is Concorde. The riders did eight laps between Concorde and the Arc.

This is what it looks like at Concorde (I didn't take this picture, obviously, but here it is). (Note: Concorde is where the Hotel Crillon is.)

View as they are heading from the Arc toward Concorde

In this video, you can see the first group whizzing by, followed by the peleton several seconds later. As you can see, they are FAST. It was pretty cool to see. Kind of like Nascar, but not as loud as they passed.

And, for David Graham's benefit, more cars. Let it be noted that all these pictures were taken either on George V (where I live,) or on Avenue Montaigne (where I work.)

Une sortie a Bois de Vincennes

On Sunday, we had a "sortie" (an outing) with some of the girls from the foyer where I live.

This is the city of Paris, with the Seine River running through it. The Bois de Vincennes (bois= woods) is the giant green blob in the southeast. So we went there to have a picnic.

Picnicking. It was cold. And then on Monday, it was hot. And today, it rained. One never knows here.

There were giant letters that spelled out "Parc Floral de Paris" ("The Floral Parc of Paris." Not to be confused with "The Plant Garden" that I visited the other day. They are very precise, these French.)

Almost all of us inside the Vincennes chateau courtyard: Luis (of Argentenian origin,) Elise (Spanish,) Me (American,) Abigail (Spanish,) Lili (Chinese/ French,) Ana (Spanish,) Fatima (Moroccan/ French,) not pictured: Hatjira (Algerian).

Flowers!

Interesting lili pad flowers. Lotus, I think. Loti?

Like a tulip, but not.

I was excited about the flowers, as you can tell.

Check out the interesting variety of hydrangea. The leaves are the same as ours, but the shape of the flowers are more of a hybrid between the shape of an oak leaf hydrangea and the French blue/pink ones we have.

In other news, we had a lovely American couple from Atlanta in the boutique yesterday. The gentleman spoke French because he had studied in Geneva (shocking!!! an American who speaks another language!) It was fun to hang out with some polite, intelligent countrymen who did not put on airs (as opposed to the wretched Chicago couple we had the other week.)

Today, Pauline (fellow intern, you know,) and I were SPIES. It was so fun. We had no one in the boutique, so our boss told us to go up and down the rest of Avenue Montaigne (the street where Ungaro is, which is more or less the fashion capitol of the world,) to see if there were people there. There weren't, as it turns out... the entire street was rather empty. But I pretended like I was a legitiment client and people opened doors for me and said, "Bonjour Madame," and wished me a "bonne journee." Exciting.

Expensive tea and expensive clothes

Behold, the Hotel de Crillon. This is where people like Madonna stay when they come to Paris. I could never afford to eat here, but guess what I can afford.... tea! That's right, I paid 9 euros, ($12.60,) for dried leaves and hot water. It was fantastic. This went down with my friends Ross and Laura (below, us outside the Crillon.) We were so classy. My tea was called "Marie Antoinette," and it came in a china cup with a silver rim, and the tea was in a silver tea pitcher and they poured it for me and there were three different kinds of sugar. As the French say, it was "tres class." May it be noted that the server wished us "une EXCELLENT soiree." No one has ever wished me an EXCELLENT soiree before; usually it's just a BONNE soiree. Insert opening line from "The Jerk" here.

I snuck a discrete picture of the courtyard where we took our tea.

In other news, I thought this was picture-worthy. I don't know what this car did to get pulled over by THREE police officers, and I also don't really know how you get pulled over by people on roller skates.... I can just picture them skating behind you, waving, trying to get you to stop.... too bad I only arrived after the car had stopped.

Walking home with Ross after tea at the Crillon, I saw this cool door... it's got molding like a wooden door, but it's glass (you're looking inside from the street; it's not a mirror.) Will you make me one, David Graham? K thanks.

And now.... drum roll... some of Ungaro's merchandise and accompanying prices:



Believe it or not, this is from 2009's collection, not 1987's. This one will set you back 1810 euros ($2534).


You can see in the picture how transparent this dress is.


And this beauty... 1370 euros, or $1918. Not the pom poms.


1300 euros, or $1820. Yeah.


I like this trench coat, and it's in a pretty fabric:


... or $3900.


This dress is my favorite item. It looks much better on somebody than on the hanger; kind of Grecian, with the draping. Too bad it's $7250.

Actually, yesterday we had a special sale in the boutique for friends and family of people who work here... you could get anything in the spring/ summer collection (like this trench coat or dress) at 70% off. Too bad 70% off of $7250 is still not remotely in my price range.

Things have been very slow in the boutique lately; we haven't had a lot of clients. However, the aforementioned special sale caused a lot of internal drama yesterday. You see, any day of the year, employees can buy perfume at 50% off. The question was, do they get it for 70% yesterday because of the sale.... technically the email said the 70% reduction was for clothes and accessories (which is not perfume,) though it did not specify. To make a long, dramatic story very short, there was much bickering and conflict, including some yelling. I learned some interesting new words.

And this morning things got interesting with a discussion about men... to sum this one up, you had two women arguing that all men are essentially selfish (they even said that men have a " "selfish chromosome,") on one side, and a man (incidentally, gay,) who argued that if men are selfish, it is because in general their mothers did all the work at home, so they internalized that paradigm and expect it to be continue. I was in the third camp, of the position that ALL people are selfish, irrespective of gender. When I say "I was in the third camp," I mean that I was defending my position in my head, as I couldn't formulate my ideas in French fast enough to slip them in among all the other heated comments. It was a lively discussion of about an hour, during which I also learned some good phrases. To make a generalization about French debates, you can take any position as long as you can defend it with intelligent reflections and examples (and as long as you can think fast enough!) The object is to defend yourself vehemently, but take away information from the other peoples' positions and further refine your original thesis.

Some of today's pictures

CHECK THIS OUT. I was hanging out with my friend Lindsey (an American who I know from my program in 2006, who is married to a French man,) and she introduced me to the wonders of Gelati D'Alberto. They have many magical flavors, and I picked pistachio, (definitely just had to spell-check that,) and rose (yes, like the flower.) It was spectacular. And BEHOLD its beautiful presentation, in the shape of a flower!!

COOL, right?!

I walked through the "Jardin des Plantes" today... "The Plant Garden." A title which has always mystifies me. "I'll meet you in the garden with all the plants." "Oh, right, that one." There were, indeed, plants, and they were lovely.

This is Lindsey, from when we meet up a few weeks ago.

We went to the Pantheon, (I had watched fireworks from outside here on the 14th,) which started out being a church and then became a shrine to the power of men during the Revolution, then went back to being a church, then secularism came back in style, church, memorial to great men, church.... now it's sort of both. A lot of thought went into the sculptures and paintings to either remind you that you ARE in a church, or remind you that you AREN'T (depending on what time they were installed.)

So basically it's a church/ burial ground for important people. The way it works is that if you are very important and die, someone can write the president and ask that you be "panthonized." (They actually have a very for this.) After going through a long series of people, if you get approved, then they exhume your body from wherever it was originally buried, and bring you up here for a ceremony with other important people (except that they are still alive.) Then you get put in a room in the crypt. Unfortunately, as you are dead, you don't have much say-so about this. For example, Voltaire and Rousseau hated each other passionately, but now they are eternally resting across right across from each other.

This visit was somewhat surreal. You walk downstairs to the crypt and everything is white stone, and you're like, "Oh hey, Voltaire. There you are." "What's up, Rousseau?" They are just right THERE, in above-ground stone coffins, in little rooms: Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Marie and Pierre Curie, Emile Zola, Louis Braille (you know, of the Braille fame...) Kind of a weird feeling to be in the same room with all these people.



This picture above is a sculpture of the Marianne (symbol of France,) people pointing your attention to her glory, and soldiers marching to defend her. The inscription below says "Vivre Libre ou Mourir:" "Live Free or Die."

In other news, there are plaques like this one all over the city as monuments to members of the French Resistance who were gunned down by the Nazis in the last few months before the end of WWII. This one says " Died for France: Here, Henri Jean Pilot, law student, fell heroically at the age of 23, on the 20th of August, 1944, for the liberation of Paris."

This is an elementary school next to a library I went to this morning.


A picture from the library. Notice anything unusual about the books?

This plaque outside the school reads: "To the memory of the children, students on this school, deported from 1942- 1944 because they were born Jewish, innocent victims of Nazi barbaricism, with the active complicancy of the Vichy government. Let us never forget them."

The "Vichy government" refers to the French officials who worked with the Nazis after Germany took over France. Even the French police conducted raids to capture Jews and other "undesirables." After the war, these officials fled to Germany and were later tried, and many exectuted by the new French government. The truth of the matter is that far more people worked with the Nazis than anyone would like to admit.