Now you know why I refused to talk to anyone at the end of last week: I was afraid I would spill the secret! For anyone who was not at the Head of the Charles this weekend, you missed out, because I was. My dad had some frequent flier miles that were set to expire at the end of the month and I had a visa questions to sort out, so I figured, what better time to come home than the weekend that the entire rowing world was in Boston (and the Red Sox were playing...but I don't want to talk about that)?
My mom and sister didn't even know I was coming home; my dad knew because he helped set it up and I only told Ellie, Elyssa, and a couple of people here, so we managed to keep it pretty under wraps. 
My mother's reaction when I walked in the door was priceless, and Mina's shriek when I jumped out from behind the wall at her was a close second. So I definitely got the reception I had hoped for.
It was really great to be home, although it was kind of a tease. When I'm here, I decide about once a day that I am going to blow off America entirely and stay here, but by the time I boarded the plane for Boston, I was pretty sure I was just going to stay home and re-enroll in Trinity mid-semester. I have a lot of things to look forward to both here and in Hartford, which is really exciting. Anyway, the highlight of the weekend (other than the Trinity women's hard-earned third-place finish) was the amount of American food I consumed. I have literally never tasted better clam chowder than what they serve during Charles, so obviously I tied last year's record with three bowls. And with Halloween fast approaching, my father was happy to pick up bags of fun-sized Hershey bars and Reese's for me to bring back over here.
I arrived in Boston Friday afternoon and left Monday evening (I got back here just in time for my morning classes), and with jet-lag and racecourse-walking and general travel fatigue, I slept for 14 hours last night, which I needed badly. Oh! And after a little mishap with some hydrogen peroxide and my eyes (Marissa uses it to clean her contacts before putting them in solution; I was a little bleary-eyed and misunderstood the label and used it AS solution), I have finally ditched the glasses and I am back to contacts. What a relief, especially since it's been raining here.
Last night I went to a Caravan Palace concert after class. You've never heard of them. They're French and a friend of mine saw them play in Bruges and said they were the most fun band she'd ever
seen live, so we traipsed over to the Bastille to see them. They lived up to the billing. It's kind of funny, because I don't think I would ever listen to their CD in my room (they play kind of a mix of circus music and techno), but they were amazing live. It probably had something to do with the fact that they were rocking out on stage like they were at latenight and projecting cartoons and old Charlie Chaplin movies and a ton of other random things on the wall behind them, and every person there was just so into it. Plus the lighting was terrific. I tried to take little videos with my digital camera and they're up on Picasa (Mom, do you think you can find the URL by yourself this time?), but they really don't capture how much fun it was. Also, KANYE is coming to Paris November 20 and obviously I already have my ticket. I don't think I have to explain how excited I am.
Well, it's been the weekend over here for like 32 hours already, so I guess I don't have to go to bed, but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea since I have grand plans for tomorrow: I am going to register to use the library. If this doesn't seem like a big deal to you, you probably have no idea how impossible the French bureaucracy (and let's be honest, the French language) is.
46.4
So...it's been awhile. What can I say, I'm too busy having a ball to write about it. I will try to do a better job of recording my exploits in the future.
Last week was fun; nothing especially important happened, but I am loving these four-and-a-half-day weekends. I decide on something I want to buy/do that is in a really remote place in Paris, look up how to get there, and then spend a few hours exploring that area. I have now ridden metro lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, and 14--leaving 3 bis, 5, 7 bis, 8, and 11. I plan to have this completed by the end of next week.
I spent Saturday in Chantilly with my program--it's a town with a pretty castle and not much else, so the seven hours we spent there were more than sufficient. When we got there at 10 a.m., the fog was so thick that we couldn't even find the castle, but it cleared while we were on our seemingly endless tour, which would probably have been more interesting if a) it had been in English, and b) we hadn't seen 12 versions of the same room with the furniture rearranged. The gardens were worth the trip, though (pictures are up).
Sunday I explored the Marche aux Puces in Clignancourt: it's just barely outside Paris city limits and the entire town turns into a massive flea market system every week from Saturday morning until Monday night. Highlights included T-shirts that said "I Heart My Ghetto" (I saw this shirt and several variations more than once), multi-colored knock-off Yankee hats with the logo in cursive (although I can't imagine they're making much money off those at this point), and classic Jaguars just hanging out in the street waiting for someone to buy them. I didn't take pictures because I was afraid of the ramifications of photographing something without buying it, but I plan to go back with a wingman who can pose in front of things.
Then tonight I went to Catholic mass. I'm not Catholic and I'm not French, so I had no idea what was going on, but I went with a French (Catholic) friend, so I followed her lead. Interesting things I learned: Catholics take Communion every day (I thought it was just every Sunday), the French tu-toi (use the informal "you" when speaking to) God, but vous-voi (the formal "you) Mary, and a Catholic church is an "eglise" (translated into English as church), but a Protestant church is a "temple" (translate into English as just what it looks like). Anyway, I guess this is the official church of the Sorbonne, because they had kind of a youth group-esque meeting (sort of like the Newman Club at Trinity, I guess) for all Sorbonne students afterward. I actually had a terrific time struggling through explanations as to what I was doing there.
Also, it is SO hot here. It was 80 degrees yesterday! Unfortunately, I spent two hours of this lovely day in a classroom built for 30 people but containing 40, with all the windows closed because people were making noise outside. You can guess how long it took me to stop paying attention.
Now, on for some important cultural differences that I think need to be addressed:
Personal space
It should come as a shock to no one who has ever met me that I like to have a certain amount of air between me and anyone near me. The French have no interest whatsoever in respecting this barrier. Without fail, I meet someone and stick my hand out to shake and am awkwardly met by the person leaning in for the cheek kiss-kiss. I understand that this is how people greet each other here, but seriously, if I don't even know you, keep your face away from my face. This extends to pretty much all aspects of life: the seats on the metro are built such that anyone with legs cannot sit in them without awkwardly entangling his legs with those of the person across from him. I am not a large person, but even I cannot sit in a metro seat without being all up in everyone else's grill. Also, in the event that a lot of people want to take the same metro at the same time, there seems to be no problem with packing people in there until they literally fall out when the doors open. The upside to this is that there is no way you will be pickpocketed during the trip as no one can move.
Water
Just to provide an example, my host family goes through two carafes of water every night at dinner: one for me, and one for the three of them. I drink at least a bottle of water, usually two, during my classes. I have a water bottle in my bag at all times and refill it multiple times throughout the day. I am the only person (besides every other American in my program) for whom this is the case. Maybe I spend too much time around athletes who need to be properly hydrated, but I just cannot figure out how the French subsist on the 12 ounces of water they seem to imbibe per day. I mentioned this to my host family at dinner the other night and my host mother told me that a study recently came out by a French nutritionist that advised the French to drink water during the day but not at meals because that would help them keep weight off. If this is true, it would explain a lot. Nonetheless, I continue to drain a small ocean every day to keep myself hydrated.
Peanut Butter
They hate it here. My host mother bought me some as a gift from a store that sells only foreign food, but not before referring to it as a "cochonnerie" (which derives from the word for pig and is generally pretty derogatory). My host father literally runs from the kitchen when he sees me ruining his jelly by adding peanut butter to it for a sandwich. When I mentioned it to my French friend, she said she did not understand Americans and asked if it was true that we had cheese in a can (which I do not think is fair, because yes it is true, but I do not feel that these two snack foods are on the same level). I have been devouring it.
47.8
This has been such a good weekend.
I made a friend at school (my host family and all the kids in my program are shocked, although I would like to think that has more to do with how fast it happened than with their opinions of my personality). She is in three out of my four classes, and I went out with her and some of her friends on Friday night. We were supposed to go to some club that I guess is a big deal here, but we had forgotten that it is Fashion Week and thus everything is invite-only, so we ended up just strolling along the Seine and sitting at a cafe. I am definitely learning a lot about the culture here from my host family, but it was really interesting to talk to kids my own age. They were shocked when I declined a cigarette and wanted to know why people didn't smoke in the U.S. I tried to explain that a) I spend a fair portion of my time around athletes who can't smoke for obvious reasons and b) we have some pretty aggressive ad campaigns. They certainly have better Surgeon General's warnings (they range from "smoking kills" to "smoking is dangerous to you and everyone around you"), though, so I guess that one is a toss-up. Then they wanted to know why our drinking age is 21 (it's 16 here for wine and beer and 18 for hard liquor) and I couldn't explain that either. They were also really interested in our university system, which has almost nothing in common with the one here. Also they told me I didn't have an American accent, which is the best compliment I have received since Natalie told me I was tall.
(Side note: French phone plans seem to charge by the character in "textos," as they're called here, 
so people have compensated by totally eliminating most vowels and also abbreviating almost all words. In addition, just as a fun game, they also sometimes use abbreviations you have to sound out--so "elle" would become "l," etc. So that's always an adventure.)
Saturday night was Nuit Blanche, which is an annual event in Paris where all the museums stay open all night and the major metro stations turn into performance spaces. They also open all the grassy areas that you can't usually sit on, so it's a blast. Another highlight was that I finally figured out the night setting on my camera. Of course, the metro stations don't stay open (typical French bureaucratic inability to communicate among departments), so the night was sadly cut short.
Today I woke up late and decided that I felt like going to the Louvre. So I did. What a terrific city, that I can just pop over to the most popular museum in the world on a whim. Sometimes I walk around here and have to remind myself that I live here now. It's incredible to be in awe all the time.
Additionally, I discovered a raspberry yogurt in drink form that is by no means delicious, but certainly palatable. Between this and the vegetables my host mother makes my host father and me eat (he doesn't like them either), I may become a healthy eater!
46.6
The worst thing about this country is that not one single person cares that the Red Sox are in the playoffs. So I am still awake watching the Brewers-Phillies game in my Papelbon shirt to make up for the general baseball apathy around here. It is a very good thing I don't have class tomorrow.
46.8
Now you know why I refused to talk to anyone at the end of last week: I was afraid I would spill the secret! For anyone who was not at the Head of the Charles this weekend, you missed out, because I was. My dad had some frequent flier miles that were set to expire at the end of the month and I had a visa questions to sort out, so I figured, what better time to come home than the weekend that the entire rowing world was in Boston (and the Red Sox were playing...but I don't want to talk about that)? 
My mother's reaction when I walked in the door was priceless, and Mina's shriek when I jumped out from behind the wall at her was a close second. So I definitely got the reception I had hoped for.
seen live, so we traipsed over to the Bastille to see them. They lived up to the billing. It's kind of funny, because I don't think I would ever listen to their CD in my room (they play kind of a mix of circus music and techno), but they were amazing live. It probably had something to do with the fact that they were rocking out on stage like they were at latenight and projecting cartoons and old Charlie Chaplin movies and a ton of other random things on the wall behind them, and every person there was just so into it. Plus the lighting was terrific. I tried to take little videos with my digital camera and they're up on Picasa (Mom, do you think you can find the URL by yourself this time?), but they really don't capture how much fun it was. Also, KANYE is coming to Paris November 20 and obviously I already have my ticket. I don't think I have to explain how excited I am.
