Après une semaine

What can I tell you?

It's been a week. I'm not thinking in French (Unless I specifically work to do so, which I'm doing more often) but très souvent, very often like just then, the French word for something appears in my mind before the English one. A soup of language, a friend said. He's right.

Qu'est-ce que je peux te dire?

J'ai rêvé heir soir, pour la première fois. I dreamt last night for the first time.

I don't have free time, or maybe it's that I do have free time and just spend all of it. My god, what do I tell you?

That's why I hate blogging,by the way. There are a thousand moments I want to share with you, a thousand times I noticed where I was and looked around, thinking am I really here? and of course always, impossibly, the answer is yes. Yes: at this moment exactly I am really sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower at 22h00, drinking cheap wine out of water bottles and eating baguettes and fromage (cheese), and le Tour is really sparkling madly into the evening. (That did happen: it was stunning.)

You'll see on my photobucket several dozens of pictures of statues and you'll probably get tired of looking at them long before I tired of taking them. Mais laisse-moi expliquer: c'est le musée Rodin. If you don't know who that is -- he is, was, a sculptor (dead now). As a dancer-- I don't get a lot of art, and I feel bad, j'ai vraiment hônte, to say that. But old paintings, strange objects -- I don't understand.

Rodin, je comprend, I understand. His statues bougent -- they move. There is a tension in them, in their muscles. They are alive -- ils vivent. It's like as soon as you turn away they'll move. the pictures can't capture it, of course. But it was amazing. I am going back there, you be sure.

And then of course we went to a little café called Le Club des Poètes, where the owner, le patron, greets you at the door and shakes your hand -- he and his mother recite French poetry for you and bring you tea and gatêau chocolat, the grandmother's recipe. There are some things that are perfect. Like that.

Yesterday we went to Versailles, which is about 45 minutes away on the RER train, a double decker ghetto train that moves as quickly as it can drag its own bulk along. But that's not what I want to talk about: what i want to say about Versailles is that I have never seen so much gold. Gates made of solid gold, d'or dans les portes (in the doors), windows, n'importe où et partout (wherever and everywhere). Quelle richesse!!! And to think that, dans ces couloirs-ci, oui, les mêmes sous tes pieds -- il y avait des gens qui y ont marchés. Pas seulement les touristes, les douzaines et centimes de touristes qui viennent chaque jour -- mais il y a quartre cent ans des gens -- du roi, de la renne -- ils ont habité.

(to think that,in these corridors, yes the same as under your feet right now -- people walked here, not just the thousands of tourists who come every day, but real people who lived here 400 years ago -- the King, and the Queen).

It's absolutely fascinating, and stunning, and that's just the château. After, you must wander through the gardens, feet hurting terribly and a knee randomly being angry with you -- the hedges a dozen feet tall in mazes, fountains with gods of gold clawing their way from the center of the earth. Then you must go to the domain of Marie-Antoinette, the houses, the gardens, the hamlet with its gardens, where sheep are still raised and donkeys and little lakes, and its absolutely serene. I wondered how one goes about becoming la renne de France, to be able to live there.

We left after the entrances were all closed, and limped back to the RER station and took the train back into Paris, looking for a restaurant and couldn't find it, so nous avons cherché pour l'un le plus moins cher -- looking for the least expensive one nearby -- and then spent over two hours with a fantastic French meal -- poulet rôti avec les frites et une salade pour moi, and mousse au chocolat for dessert -- with a glass of wine to go with it. It was absolutely wonderful.

Today -- because we could -- we went to a restaurant called "breakfast in America" -- it's been a week and we're a long way from home -- and had French toast and coffee after a long wait in line -- yes, a line!! with French people! It's apparently very popular, and you can see why -- the food is not expensive and very good.

After a leisurely time we headed out for Montmartre, located in the 18e arrondissement. Located on a random, very steep hill, it is in the middle of a quartier très pauvre, avec beaucoup d'immigrès -- donc c'est un peu louche et il faut qu'on fasse attention à son porte-feuille. (It's in a poor, immigrant neighborhood, so it's a little sketchy and you have to pay attention to your wallet). When you enter the gates, a swarm of guys holding little bits of string try to stop you so they can make you a bracelet and charge you however many euros -- they grab your elbow as you walk by, and you have to be very firm about ignoring them and saying no. You walk up a hundred or so steps and the Cathedral de Sacre-Coeur se trouve là, is there. The steps are full of tourists and more people trying to sell you trash -- doesn't anyone realize it's trash? but the tourists still buy buy buy, why not if you can? -- and there are impromptu, and illegal, shows going on and the French police ignore everything, including the pickpockets.

But it's beautiful, and if you pay 5 euros, you can walk up 300 winding steps, dizzying and steep, to the dome, and there is Paris, laid out in front of you -- la défense, which is to the north of the city and where you find all the skyscrapers --- but the city itself, full and brimming and busy, white buildings and winding streets. My friend and I stood up there pendant longtemps, for a long time, talking about how to change the world. Again, there are some things that are perfect. Like that.

I encourage you to check out my pictures at my photobucket: grhodes7. ici. My photos of Montmartre, I am sorry to say, have been inexplicably deleted by a wrong key tap and now I can't find them. I have a lot of friends, however, who did take pictures, and as soon as I get my hands on them, I will make sure you are able to see them. Sorry about that.

Hugs to all, à bientot, bisous!!

Holy crap, I'm in France!

Alors, je vous promets que je vais écrire encore avec plus de detailes -- le voila. (I promised you I'd write with details.)

Vous duvons me pardonner si j'écris trop de français -- en fait maintenant c'est plus facile pour moi (You'll have to excuse me writing too much in french, it's actually easier for me at the moment). Mais - but - thinking of you, dear reader-who-doesn't-know-French -- ne vous inquietez pas, vous n'êtes pas seuls, don't worry you're not alone -- I will try to write more English.

Anyway enough of that. So I have some pictures -- for the ease of reading, which I know is kind of ironic because I write schizophrenically, but in any case I decided to upload them to my photobucket album, which I'll link to au fin de ce poste (at the end of this post, I swear I did not do that on purpose).

Ooh la la. I am so tired right now. It was a long day. HOWEVER. I think for the purpose of this post, I'm just going to describe a few important places that have been in my life the past couple days.

1: The France Telecom public phone; Baggage Claim 5; Charles De Gaulle airport: I was there at roughly 16h00 dans l'apres-midi samedi, saturday afternoon, after a long time traveling and not a lot of sleep, though I did crash out during the flight from London to Paris. I couldn't sleep on the flight from Denver to London, although I did try. I watched Shrek 4 and a French romantic comedy. In any case, at this exact phone, I was trying to call the shuttle service --- and actually managed to figure it out.

"Bonjour, yellowvan," the woman said, in very fast French. I made a decision.

"Bonjour," I said, "je m'apppelle Gillian Rhodes, j'ai une reservation?"

"Ah oui," she said, and directed me, in French, to get my bags and then go to Porte 10 pour rencontre le conduisant (to meet the driver).

2: 1, Villa Brune; Le 14e arrondissement: I was first there around 18h00 samedi, after two hours in the shuttle through a strange and busy city; a city that is a little more urban and a little bigger than I was expecting, where the street signs can be found on the corners of the buildings, the street lights are on either side, and the streets themselves follow absolutely no logical directions or patterns. The trees are already turning and the air is a little chill. The streets are narrow and there aren't that many cars, but they seem to take up a lot of space. Motorcycles are absolutely everywhere; on the sidewalk, on the street, parked wherever you please in nice little rows.

In any case, I was -- and currently am - on Villa Brune because that's where I'm living. Le petit appartement c'est sur le quatrieme etape, which is actually the fifth floor in american terms, because the French start with zero. It's small, but cute. The kitchen is almost smaller than my room, which isn't saying much; it can barely contain the desk, bed, and wardrobe in itself. But it's very nice, and colorful (and those who know me know what I think about color).

3: Reid Hall, 4 rue de Chevreuse, 6e arrondissement: A quaint building, surrounded un petit jardin, a little garden and courtyard, it's very cute inside, though nothing special on the outside. Rue de Chevreuse is a little side street off le boulevard de montparnesse, qui est tres plein de choses et des voitures (it's a busy street). It is where I will spend most of my time for the next four weeks -- after orientation, we a have a language practicum pour ameliorer notre francais (to make our French better) et ça durée trois semaines (it lasts three weeks). It is the Columbia campus in France and must be deceivingly large, because it seems very small but apparently a lot goes on there.

4: Le Tour Eiffel, 7e Arrondissement: I was there at roughly 18h00 aujourd'hui, today, after orientation. I met a few people from the program and we hit it off immediately because we all wanted to speak french, not english, and so decided that we would be friends for the semester (one of the girls is staying for the whole year, everyone else leaves in December). Probablement que nous allons voyager ensemble si c'est possible (we'll probably travel together if we can). In any case, we went for a long walk through the streets of Paris -- got lost several times, but managed to find le tour eiffel --- it's hard to miss, yes, but it disappears often behind other buildings. However -- it is somehow bigger and smaller than you'd think, at the same time. The details are incredible, and it just seems so much more artsy than the pictures might suggest. You walk through it and people hold out stupid little plastic statues, but if you say "Non merci" firmly, they leave you alone. If you speak English, they'll bother the crap out of you until you buy something. Which you don't want to do.

In any case on the other side there was a little carousel -- there seem to be a lot of little carousels all over the place, which I don't understand but I love -- I am for whatever reason absolutely fascinated by carousels and I want to ride them. It probably comes from Mary Poppins. Whatever. So we walked by and went up to this giant building on the other side of the tower, and I was told several times what it was and can't remember now. There were fountains, it was pretty, and looking up at the Eiffel Tower, you think, wow, I'm actually in France. It's very surreal, actually. But cool. Just surreal.

I took the metro most of the way home and then walked. It's not far, I'll probably walk most of the time to Reid Hall. I will most certainly tomorrow because, in true French fashion, there is une greve, a strike, and the metro will be running slow. Welcome to France, n'est-ce pas?

D'ailleurs, je vais vous laisser la -- je suis épuisé maintenant parce que je me suis reveillée pendant la nuit et je ne pouvais pas m'endormir pour trois heures. I will leave you there, I'm exhausted because I was awake for three hours in the middle of the night. I blame jet lag, le decalage horaire.

I'll write again sometime soon. I don't know when, but sooner rather than later.

Pour voir les photos, clickez-ici.

A bientot, mes chers.