Ich spreche kein Deutsch.

Since I'm currently rocking two weeks of winter vacation (loving this aspect of the French education system), I spent the first five days of break in Germany visiting my friend Kelly. She was working as an au pair in Hennef, which is sort of in between Köln and Bonn.

This was her house (just the upstairs.)

The first night I was there it snowed a lot overnight, and the next morning there was snow on the windshield of her car. I don't think I've ever been so excited to see snow on a windshield, but with the TREES and all I really felt like I was back home :)

Gallivanting in a nearby town, Siegburg. Couldn't figure out what this was all about.

The second day I was in Germany we wandered around Bonn. It was cute, although it seems strange to refer to capital of former East Germany as cute. Oh well.

False advertising.

Apparently Beethoven spent time here. I don't know if I knew that, but I re-found out. I swooned at his feet a little bit.

There were these old fortress-looking ruins in the middle of one of the large, open plazas that German cities seem to favor. Wish I understood the story behind it.

Kelly made epic macaroni and cheese -- as in, we made French onion soup and pasta, and then added copious amounts of gouda to everything. Delicious.

Then Kelly let me spend one afternoon wandering Hennef, the town she was technically living in. It was more or less the Endicott/Manlius of Germany, but I really had fun. Lots of fun little shops! This is the Rathaus, or townhall. Seems insulting to the rats.

Schmuck jewelry. I really have nothing to add to this.

Nothing strikes the fear of God into my heart like a statue of a soldier popping a squat. Seriously? What is going on here?! Especially since the earlier rain left a small puddle under his butt on the base, well, it really looked as though he'd had a potty malfunction moment.

Wait a minute, what country am I in? This was in front of the little Hennef train station.

I seem to recall that in the US, we advertise CANADIAN ginger ale. I guess American ginger ale is the European marketing strategy ...

I got sick. Again. Unbelievable, I've never been sick this many times in any year of my life, never mind any five-month period!

The last day was beautiful, so Kelly and I went walking through the countryside near her house. On the top of the hill on the left you can see ruins of an old castle. Wish we'd had time to explore it!

Very picturesque. I really needed to be out in the countryside, more than I realized. Turns out I really like trees. And space. I'm so not a city girl at heart ...

LIES. Because of a train accident in Halles, Belgium, the trains were a mess for almost two weeks. After mandatory train changes in Brussels I was an hour late arriving, and on the way back we (Kelly came with me) hopped a bajillion different forms of public transport, before convincing a half dozen train conductors to let us onto not our train to get us to Brussels earlier, and from there we caught an earlier train back to Paris.

Quite the adventure! But it makes one heck of a story :) Now, week two of break is relaxing in Paris. It's nice to just go out and wander for a few hours everyday!

Mesdames, Messieurs.

Got home from work early today, because half of the schools where I work are on strike. Massive reforms to the education system are really ticking people off, and this in turn means that my schedule gets funky (depending on who's absent for which day's strike).

Upon quitting the métro at Saint-Sulpice, I was greeted by a massive marching protest - of teachers. Go figure.

When I got to my apartment, I grabbed my mail, where I came across the following letter:

Not sure how much of that you can decipher, but it's a notice that my métro station at Saint-Sulpice will be closed from March 1st to May 18th, inclusive. Closed. You cannot enter the station. Trains will not be stopping there.

Ugh.

Luckily, I can still intercept the 4 line at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which really isn't much further, but the fact that they just close down whole stations for months at a time still peeves me. Screw you, RATP. I don't care if my métro is '+ beau' (plus beau = prettier), I care about using it.

Finally remembered to snap a shot of this restaurant in Aubervilliers. Call me obsessive, but the diner in the TV show Bones where they often hang out is (I'm pretty sure) called The Royal diner. There are probably millions of Royal diners in the US, really, but I always think of it when I see this!

This is for all of my friends with ties to Australia (Brittany, Mell, Fanny, and anyone else). I was wandering around Châtelet the other day while waiting to catch the coach bus for orchestra (more on that in a second) when I came across this bar/café. Further investigation may be necessary!

This past weekend I was part of the portion of the orchestra that went to Pontoise to accompany a piano concours (a piano competition). We accompanied three candidates on the first movement of the Piano Concerto in A major by Mozart -- an American girl from Juilliard, a Polish guy, and an Italian girl (she ended up winning).

It was a lot of fun, and it's been quite some time since I was on a coach bus with a bunch of friends. In fact, it was very much like playing a normal concert at home in some respects -- we were in black on black (for once not our ball gowns!) and we played in a modern type auditorium like you'd find in the US, rather than some 14th century church or something. A temporary return to normalcy. You have to play differently in a modern room like that because it eats the sound, something that I think American music students are more accustomed to than we realize, whereas it's less evident for students with the habit of playing in acoustic magnifying rooms like St Louis des Invalides. They didn't have a shell though, so I wonder whether it projected well to the audience. Whatever.

Everyone is just WAITING for Friday afternoon, since that's the start of two weeks of break. I'll have Thursday to myself, at least until orchestra, because I'm babysitting a full day tomorrow. Friday is back to school for some make-up classes, and then after rehearsal on Saturday I'm on a train to Koeln, Germany to visit my friend Kelly who now works there as an au pair (Koeln, Köln, or Cologne... sometimes you wonder if they're really all the same place). I'm really excited to see her, and as Val knows, I'm trying some last minute German cramming.

Changing direction.

A brasserie on the side of Firmin Gémier where I cut through to get to Balzac/Victor Hugo (the schools where I teach afternoon classes). I know that 'Changement de direction' means they're changing owners, but I can't help thinking of it in a franglais way, whereby it means 'Changing direction.' Insert intensive metaphysical discussion of the deeper meaning this could potentially have in my life here.

Today when I got to babysitting, I was invited to join them at their house in the south of France during our April school vacation (awesome!). Of course, the boys wanted to know right away if I'd be coming along to play, and I told them I wasn't quite sure yet. Julien (6) proceeded, matter-of-factly, to state "Right, because you have to ask your Mommy."

I think that wins the award for adorable comment of the month, and I'm flattered that I'm still classed among the kids and not the grown-ups ;)

... en descendant du train.

The other day when I came out of the métro at Sèvres-Babylone, I found half of Boulevard Raspail closed down for ... oh right, a strike. Not sure who the disgruntled party was this time.

Urban wind chimes? Métro with a pearl earring? Someone hung a random earring from part of the métro's door, and watching it flutter in the subterranean breeze on my way to work made me giggle.

Coming out of the 4 at Saint-Germain-des-Près this afternoon, I noticed this on the sidewalk. Not sure I agree with the message, but I was nevertheless amused.

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike ...

Upon quitting babysitting tonight, I contemplated the Velib' station that faces the Kobrin's apartment. 'Why not?' I thought, 'Sooner or later you'll try it.'

I thus embarked upon my first harrowing Vélib' experience. Vélib' is the bicycle service in Paris and it's surrounding areas. You can get short term or long term subscriptions that allow you to rent out bikes from stations all around Paris. Seeing as there are a bunch near my house, I've always wanted to try, but I'm afraid of, oh, you know, BEING FLATTENED BY A BUS.

Still.

I popped in my snazzy bankcard, hopped a bike and started pedaling in what had to be roughly the correct direction. After some crazed weaving I was on the Iéna bridge over the Seine, staring at the Eiffel Tower lit up right smack in front of me. Picturesque comes to mind here.

After a panicked moment in the middle of 730 pm traffic on the Quai Branly, I ended up on the Avenue de Suffren, from which I cut across the Champ de Mars and wove erratically until I made it to Avenue La Motte-Piquet, and right next to the M° La Tour Maubourg, I ditched my bike at another Vélib' stand. I now see that I had actually navigated most of the tricky part by then, but that leaves me excitement for the next time I get ambitious.

I forgot how annoying one-way streets are when you aren't on foot.

Upcoming concerts that have caught my eye:

1. Whitney Houston

2. The Temptations with The Four Tops

3. Jarule

4. Boyz to Men

Wait, WHAT?

Not sure which one of those is illiciting the biggest what, and the tone varies, but ...

WHAT?!

Also, isn't boys to men more like middle-aged to old men at this point? There can't possibly be any boys left ... Can there?