Third Annual Twenty-first Birthday (reprise)

Saturday morning, after months of volleying emails, I met up with the grandson of Dr. Rosefsky, Doug. For those of you that didn't know, I won a scholarship to study abroad (two years ago) that Dr. Rosefsky founded. Doug now lives and works in Paris, and it was great to get to meet him! He showed me some other paintings that his grandfather had done (I really liked them) and also some great quotes that his grandfather had on a sheet -- My favorite was 'To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.'

Because I was afraid of the hard time I'd be given on Saturday if I did nothing to celebrate on the actual day of my birthday, I arranged a hasty gathering. I insisted that it had to begin on the very tip of Ile de la Cité (not the Notre Dame end, the other end which literally forms a point). I wanted to make bazookas in the middle of the Seine, in March, SO WE DID!

I'd had picnics there with friends in the past, and it's a really neat location because you're literally in the middle of the Seine, with boats going by on both sides and everything.

Except I probably almost killed us all with frostbite, because the WIND was unbelievable. We lasted for quite awhile (including my cousin, Melissa, who had just arrived in Paris, from Virginia). Right when we decided death was imminent and got up to go find a bar, my friend Justine showed up with her friend that I'd never met, and we ended up being invited back to her friend's house. Awesome! So she invited her friends, and a group of ten of my friends and I all celebrated until the wee hours of the morning! Lots of fun :)

This, however, is the only picture that I took the entire night. I, of course, brought jars for bazooka making, and you can just see the edge of Ile de la Cité with some of the lights on the water beyond it. I clearly missed my calling in artsy photography ...

Then Monday was the first day back to school. When we were making our passports, I had told all of my students my birthday, but the kicker is that a few of them actually remembered! One little girl in Aurélie's class brought me this vase, which I intend to make the focal point of my future home decorating.

It was so sweet of her, especially since I only see each class of these kids for 45 minutes per week!

Then yesterday another little girl, in the school I like considerably less than the others, who sees me even less because I'm not even in her class every week (long story), got me this, and a box of chocolates! I was so flattered and touched that these little second graders had gotten me birthday presents, it was adorable.

I had the self-discipline, at least, to leave the box of chocolates out to share in the teachers' room of the school where I work after-school, because I knew that bringing it home meant I would eat the whole thing singlehandedly.

This little fairy girl accompanied the box of chocolates, although it weighs like 12 lbs and I think it might be made out of lead, so if I end up with lead poisoning please tell the doctors what happened.

Then last night, as had been planned, Guillaume and I held a joint birthday party (he turned 24 of the 4th, and I of course 23 on the 6th). He has spent his whole life in Paris, so I let him do the location hunting, and he succeeded brilliantly with a pub called Saint Patrick's in the 11e. It's huge, particularly by Parisian standards, and very comfortable and chill (although there were matches on, and it was particularly empty I'm told). At any rate we had a pretty sizable group of people going on, and it was great to see everyone.

Also funny because it was more or less a 50/50 split between Americans and Français, so I sat in the middle and tried not to let the language switching blow my mind :) At least school has put me in the habit of going back and forth at the drop of a hat.

Non-sequitur.

When Anna and I had teatime at her place the other day, I noticed this in the pantry/kitchen closet.

For those of you who have not spent considerable time in my house, let's just say that this was my mom's mug of choice (from Brueggers Bagels) for the duration of my childhood, and many memories of car trips revolve around guarding her specific white, plastic cup holder (because the mug's base is not standard size) in our old, red Explorer.

Priceless, this thing should be sold on vintage Ebay.

Twenty-three, schmenty-three.

Rang in midnight with friends and chocolate fondue. A perfect start :)

Vive Avancé 8!

Today I went strolling for a few hours (it was sunny!) up and down Rue de Rennes to Montparnasse and back, and around 2pm I met up with my grammar teacher from the Sorbonne. Madame Camille Mildred, or Mildred Camille, depending on the registration card you were looking at. It was really great to catch up with her, it's nice to feel like I got to know some of my teachers while I was here!

After that I continued strolling around Rue Mouffetard and the rest of the Ve arrondissement, back behind the Panthéon.

During my walks I make a point of watching for the historical signs and markers all over the city. Imagine my surpise when I came upon this:

If you can't make out the writing, it says that this is the house, belonging to Valery Larbaud, where James Joyce wrote Ulysses. That's pretty solid.

Not too much farther along I found something for Gennie (my sister):

Given that she's one of the patron saints of Paris (Geneviève, not my sister haha) this isn't too shocking. But still.

After I took a brief coffee break in a café called Zig Zag, I saw this. A café dedicated to fans of Manga. Uhhhhh...

Then I came upon a magic store. I hesitated, then figured I had nothing to lose by going in. I investigated their wide selection of tricks and supplies for sale, and one of the guys that worked there was nice enough to perform a couple of card tricks for me. I am fascinated by magic (let's review how many magic kits I received over the course of my childhood, not to mention the 'magic shows' performed in my bedroom, where I made my sisters disappear under the sheets ...) but I will never be clever enough to figure out how they do it.

The guy gave me a brochure with dates for magic shows at a bar in the Marais, so I might go check that out sometime. It was neat to have someone do the tricks right in front of my eyes, instead of from afar or on a TV.

Finally, I wandered some more and wound up alongside the Seine. Tell me what's wrong with this sign:

I'll give you a hint -- it's a proper noun. WHAT IS SODEXO DOING NEAR THE PARISIAN BOAT TOURS? Ughhhhh, renegade dining hall food? That can't be Kosher. Hahahahahahaha.

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 ;)