A hint of sun and beach... Spain getaway

So... after a lot of work, my first French expose is done, my first French econ exam as well, and several research projects and presentations well on their respective way... Sciences Po really doesn't let you take a break, which nevertheless didn't prevent me from taking one anyway. I had planned this trip since the summer, since my aunt has been living in Spain for more than two years and now, though back in Germany, goes there every vacation. I hadn't seen her for about six years, so what better opportunity than meeting up in Figueres? The Ryanair flight was short, though getting to the airport took about three times longer (refer to the previous post for more info about the magic of Paris Beauvais). But once arrived in Girona, these were four wonderfully stressless and enjoyable days. The first day we visited Girona, the cathedral and the old town, had lunch, walked around and chatted so so much. In the evening, my aunt taught me how to make pan con tomate (so easy and soo yummy) and we had wine, cheese, and macarons that I brought from Paris. The second day was all about sleeping in, breakfasting leisurely, and seeing the Dali museum in Figueres! That was a crazy, crazy artist, man, with an inflated ego just to match his love of attention. In the last years of his life, he actually created his own museum because he was convinced that after his death the world wouldn't be able to properly commemorate him. On the other hand, that ensured that there are really cool installations and art projects to see that you could have never otherwise replicated. He was a genius after all as well - one of those typical cases where the genius and the crazy lie very, very close together. After the museum, we found a little plaza where we sat out in the sun and had gazpacho, paella and sangria... Perfect... Then we hit the shops and I stocked up on very necessary winter clothes, very necessary ...uh.. fall dresses and super... important... jewellery..? My aunt is the worst and best person to go shopping with because she finds all the right things for you - and no reasons not to get it. Finally, we rounded the day off when sharing churros con chocolate (spelled xurros con xocolate in Cataluna) which may just be the best high-caloric food ever. If I ever need to put on weight for medical reasons (hey, it can always happen, right?), just put a huge plate of this in front of me. Actually, it's these little dough fritters that you dunk into really, really thick hot chocolate... Apparently also amazing after-partying-three-in-the-morning food. I heard.
On Saturday was Barcelona day. From the start we had said that you can't see all of Barcelona in one day, and we didn't even try, that was the nicest part. We just took the train in and went directly to Parque Guell, the park area that Gaudi designed. It reminded me a little of the Mont Royal in that it's such an oasis of peace and nature in a hustling and bustling city. Except that Parque Guell has in addition to that amazing art - sculptures, mosaics, little caves and bridges made of natural stone.. You could spend the whole day there, but we stayed strong and left after a couple of hours in order to see the heart of Barca - the Rambla! This pedestrian zone in the middle of a huge shopping street has three parts - the newspaper part, where you can get the world press, the flower part with the most amazing bouquets, and the animal part. Here, I think they play with pity and the adorableness of the animals, since I would have taken every single one home just to save it from the fate of staying in that small cage forever. Later, we meandered around the Barrio Gotico, the old town with teeny tiny streets that only allow the sun to shine in for a couple of hours every day. Walking through the Barrio is a little like a maze, you always turn a corner and see something unexpected - a little church, an accordeon player on a little square, a cafe or a churreria with the odd handful of customers.... Or if you are unlucky, you hit one of the bigger streets filled with loud tourists clamoring for real German Schnitzel (why do I have the impression that all the annoying tourists are German?) and you can only save the atmosphere by fleeing back into the cool, calm alley. On one of the larger squares, it looked like a courtyard with balconies lining the side of the houses and palm trees growing in the four corners, we sat down for a coffee and people watching - the best activity in big cities. And finally we went to the harbor (hello ocean!) and also said hi to the Columbus colon (hello Columbus!).

All of a sudden the last day was already there, and so I packed my bag and... we went to the beach! My flight only went in the evening, so we had another full day of adventure. We decided to drive to Caraques, a little coastal village, near which also Dali's summerhouse is. Already the drive there was breathtaking - the road went in serpentines up over the hills, and after every turn was a new view of the ocean, olive groves or the valley below. Caraques itself has these little whitewashed cottages and a white church that reminded me a lot of Greece, and so did the laidback atmosphere. Dali himself did not live in the village - God forbid!) but in the next bay which he bought up for himself. Yup. He bought a bay. And built a house out of three joint former fishermen's huts. Including his personal fisherman, his cleaning ladies, chefs and gardeners. Well, in any case, his house is super interesting, especially the contrast between some cottagey-simple rooms that work well with the view out of every room, which his wife Gala decorated, and the unusual collections of Dali. In his entrance hall stood a polar bear with a lantern in his hand; in his pool area he has advertizement signs for Pirelli tires, and pretty much wherever you turned there was another artefact. I only pity his wife for having to put up with so much... well, let's call it creativity. Plus he drew here in all kinds of situations, from behind, naked, an expressionist painting with drawers coming out of her chest... she must've been really stiff from all that modelling. Well, finally we walked around Caraques for a while and, as a last meal, had tapas (tortilla for me) and pan con tomate. A perfect end of a perfect getaway. Plus, the fact of not having done any homework resulted in my studying econ on the plane and feeling incredibly superior to all the people reading "Elle" or the board magazine. Is that bad? ;)

Why Paris Beauvais is not a real Paris airport... and maybe not a real airport at all

1. The shuttle bus takes off from the very periphery of the city three hours before your flight.

2. Thus, the shuttle bus journey to Beauvais took me longer than the flight to Spain.

3. After the journey of 1h30min (I saw one blogger saying "I thought we were already in Belgium"), you realize you didn't have to be there early anyways because the whole airport is one shack with two security lines, a passport control with empty seats and one coffee shop. The security check line took literally all of 3 minutes.

4. Around the airport, there is advertisement for tourism in the Valle de l'Oise region... but not for Paris. Strange?

5. Landing, I saw not one but two hares run off the runway.

6. After landing back in Beauvais, the pilot said... "and we wish you a pleasant stay in the Paris ... region."

Paris observations

Since I haven’t written for a while, here’s to a double post! My friend Eric was asking for some Paris observations and this comes right out of my answer to him. I have been making some more observations since then and included them randomly (they are probably the lighter-hearted ones, when I was writing to Eric I was in a pretty bad humor) so sit back and pretend to be in Paris!

1. Parisians are obsessed with baguettes. I mentioned it before, in my Belleville post, but I thought it was only on Saturday/market days that they walk around with baguettes. Ohh no. On their way to work, from work, to see friends, in their lunch break, from the grocery store where they got a jar of Nutella – they carry a baguette everywhere. I can understand that the quality here of baguette is really hard to resist, and I have not yet gotten enough of them, but you would think that after a lifetime living here you’d kind of become accustomed to white bread, wouldn’t you? Maybe it’s addictive and gets worse as time goes by? In that case I will have to be very, very careful…

2. In that vein – okay, you know the whole spiel of “why do French people stay so thin with all the good food they have" and the answer is some weird red-wine-plus-mediterranean-food explanation? Forget about it. They stay thin because they don’t eat. I mean, yes, they have baguette, the occasional cheese and chocolate exuberance and all – but from what I have seen here, the Parisian at least eats very sparingly, has little time to cook, and prefers just to sit for a very long time with a bottle of red wine and a couple of grapes and corners of cheese to nibble on. As a foodie, I feel extremely awkward when it comes to the question “tu as faim?” – are you hungry?, because of course, I am always hungry. But that is not Parisian. At. All.

3. It's funny how Parisian nightlife is influenced by public transport systems. Since taxis are soo expensive, most people rely on the metro and/or buses to get home. Though there are night buses (occasionally) and the infamous Velib (the original BIXI), most people decide that since the metro only opens at 5h30, you'll just stay out and party until 5h30. I personally have gone the sporty way and taken the Velib plenty of times up the steep Rue de Belleville, but heard of loads of my friends just coming home around 6am or 6.30. The rest of the day is then of course lost, at least until the next evening where the same thing starts all over... Interesting concept.
4. Parisian traffic is friggin insane, especially (inexplicably) around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Wait, not inexplicably. That's Parisian rush hour for you. I really think so, cuz last time I tried to bike back, I nearly got hit by cars/buses/bikes/vespas like 5 times and it took me soo much time just because of all the red lights and detours. The really ironic thing is that in order to alleviate traffic in the city, the Mayor's office decided to make nearly all streets one-way to deter people from even taking their car. Just, although many streets are theoretically free in both directions for bikes, once they are really small and there are cars parked on the side too, biking up the wrong way is pretty much a kamikaze action. But at least you get your daily kick of adrenalin totally free and with a healthy inhalation of car fumes! No, kidding, biking around the city is normally a hell of a lot of fun just because you get to see so much history in front of your eyes! just the pedestrians get annoying. especially all the tourists. *parisian sigh*
5. The best music you will get to hear for free is often going to be in the metro. Until now, I've discovered this 10-head-Russian big band (they all sing, and play the guitar, clarinet, and a bunch of other instruments that I can't remember) that sings traditional Russian and Kletzmer music,

then there is the string orchestra, the flamenco guitarist, the piano player that set up his concert piano in front of the St. Germain metro exit, the Jamaican drummers, and last but not least the 20-head Spanish band that sang and played guitar and serenaded me two days ago (it was too funny, I just walked down to the metro with them when one of them offered me a seat, talked to me in Spanish and made his companions sing a song for me. Cuute!). There are also the more...amateur people that come into your metro train, sing a phrase or two from Edith Piaf and then walk around your already pretty stuffed wagon asking for tips. But at least they have guts.
6. Apparently the weather is going to be pretty grey-cloudy during the fall and winter months. Good for cookie baking (and galette baking. Nectarine-raspberry galette. Hmmm:

  Not good for jogging. As I discovered today. I'll go tomorrow. Most probably.
7. Parisians can be really nice, but can also be as snotty as their reputation. Especially Parisian bank clerks. Seriously, my bank has screwed up more times than I could even count. I've been trying to get back at them by boycotting giving them the stupid unnecessary documents which I always assume that they will forget, but they never do, leaving me in a Catch 22 situation which I can't resolve without giving in to the bank clerk I’m having a duel to death with. What a dilemma.

Juxtaposed Versailles

After a slightly difficult week with first classes, illnesses of myself and everybody around me, confusion, frustration and occasional spouts of loneliness, this Saturday was the perfect opportunity to shake it all off and just… enjoy life in Paris. But first things first – first classes.

I knew that the French lecturing style would be different and was apprehensive about what would expect me when I walked through that door the first day. Well, the French lecture course as well as the English one were just fine, except for the language barrier for economic vocabulary (ALENA = NAFTA??) and the fact that on Tuesday I concentrated more on not throwing up over my course notes than on completing them. But then came the conference courses, and they left me baffled. In a … good way. I guess. Because different isn’t automatically bad. But – it’s most definitely different. First of all, the class sizes are tiny. My largest class (the cours magistrale) are 45 students, the smaller ones are between 19 and 22 students with a real professor to talk to! It’s like taking all master-level seminars at McGill! Awesome.

Then, the evaluation methods are … interesting. In three of my five classes, I don’t seem to be having finals. In one, I need to make a presentation and a hand-out, in another one write a paper and participate in class, and in the third one, I need to do a presentation, and hand in 2 to 3 other written assignments. Oh – that is all? O—kaay…

Finally, in my steady search of “where is the work? where is the work?", let me confide you a secret: there are no mandatory readings in French conference classes. Our professors did say that readings would be important to contribute better to the class, and gave us reading lists of 10 to 20 books, but none is mandatory. Apparently, they want you to be able to express an informed opinion on the topic we are discussing and to defend that opinion in front of your peers. But whether you do that through improvisation, reading like crazy, nights in the library or leisurely Sunday mornings reading the weekly press is apparently your choice. This absence of structure brings me on edge. Couldn’t you just tell me which book to buy? Which chapter to read? It’s bad enough to be researching for one topic relying on good luck and chance to actually find the important readings and quotes, but having to constantly work like that? Don’t the teachers just want to spare themselves the effort of making a course pack? On closer reflection, I guess the fact that not all students will have prepared exactly the same way will make for way more fascinating discussions – provided everybody has enough self-discipline to actually prepare at all…

So, enough of Sciences Po rant and more to Paris. With my friends John, Haruho and Cecile, I went to Versailles today on a glorious beginning-of-fall day (the air is starting to get crisp, leaves are curling up on their branches and boots are definitely replacing the ballerinas on the feet of trendy Parisians). We didn’t know it yet, but we picked a great weekend to go, since only last week the exhibition of the oeuvres of Murakami in the rooms of Versailles opened up. Imagine crazy, colorful, fantastic, imaginative, funky sculptures sharing the limelight of fleur-de-lys tapestries, golden moldings and mahagoni cabinets. Don’t think it works? Let me prove you otherwise:

 

I loved it. Having seen Versailles before, obviously I was impressed by the grandeur, but I had already thought the first time that it was a little too much gold, a little too stuffy, and too many portraits of men and women I didn’t know. This exhibition brought exactly the right drop of fun and ridiculousness into the whole that I would say was desperately needed. Though we heard a lot of French muttering about “comment c’est moche”, there were also loads of people enjoying themselves immensely, especially the Japanese tourists and children obviously. In our hearts, we are all just children, aren’t we?

After the exhibition, we wandered around the gardens, came back to my place and made carrot-yam stew and home-made bread. What a perfect, perfect Saturday.

Le belle Belleville

Tomorrow is the first day of class for me, but the following couple of days are my last days of freedom to walk around and explore Paris to my heart’s delight. Already this weekend was a great introduction to my neighborhood, Belleville. I simply love it here and can’t believe my luck to be able to experience such a different, but equally fascinating Paris compared to intellectual and uppedy-nose St.-Germain-des-Pres. Firstly Place des Fetes – it’s a tiny little park on a rather large square, surrounded by not all too aesthetically pleasing high-rise buildings. But there is a market three times a week – Tuesday, Friday and Sunday mornings – and then you can feel the real Parisian spirit waft through the air together with the delicious smell of fresh baguette. It still makes me excited to see how excited Parisians are about food. Walking up Rue de Belleville yesterday noon, you could tell the best butchers, bakers and fishmongers by the lines that were building on the sidewalk in front of their shop. Little children are taken along to the Sunday morning achats and wait patiently for their parents turn in line, maybe watching the roasting chickens turn on their shashlik. At the cheese makers, the women serving you will ask when you want to eat your camembert – tonight, tomorrow or within the week? – and poke her finger into the different cheeses on display until she finds the right one. At the market, again, the freshest and tastiest veggies – not necessarily the cheapest ones though – are well-marked by the line that forms quickly at their stand, but standing in line (trusting the locals is always a good idea) just gives you enough time to decide whether this week will be zucchini-, eggplant- or pumpkin-week, whether the tomatoes and the basil both look good enough to make insalata caprese, and whether you can afford to get fresh figs this week as well or rather try the fresh dates. Also, wearing a skirt at the market is always a good idea if you want to have free samples of apricots, melon and pineapple, though you might have to deal with a kiss on the cheek from some of the merchants and endless calls of “Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! Bonjour!”. Finally, I counted yesterday rigorously and seriously, every second person I saw on the street was carrying a baguette. Or flowers. It makes me happy to think about all the happy wives cooking at home when their husband comes from the market with kids crunching fresh carrots and a huge bouquet of wild flowers in his hand.

But Belleville has so much more to offer than the market and typically French stores. Down the street are one after the other a tiny Indian place, two Vietnamese “Pho”-soup places, a Chinese ravioli restaurant, an Arab grocery store that stocks evverything in the tiniest amount of space possible, one or two Thai places (though unfortunately with little vegetarian plates, maybe one should inquire whether they make any), and then at the very bottom you get to one of Paris’ largest China towns where all the shops have labels in Chinese and French, and I explored a huge supermarket with very intriguing products (many of which were not labelled in English, and looked… interesting). To top it all off, East of Rue Belleville there is a beautiful park that overlooks the town and where the city offers free wifi.

Yes. free wifi. In a park with view on the Eiffel tower.

Welcome to my corner of Paris.