Thoughts on the Life of a Barista

L'Ariel café

Tim's blog assignment: "Alright, first assignment, grab a cup of coffee in a cafe and tell me about the barista. Speculate on the sort of life you think they may or may not lead." Tim's a barista himself, so this is a fitting assignment hehe.

Ok I wrote this in my journal originally, and just transcribed it online, so don’t think of me typing online at a tiny table, writing gives a much more classic image hehe.

Thursday January 21, 2010
I’m in a café right now on the corner of Rue de la Glacière and Rue de Tolbiac and Place Coluche in the 13ième arrondissement in a café called L’Ariel. My friends Antonia and Jordan have emphasized that I get to know my neighborhood, so I’m fulfilling this blog mission in a local joint on my corner. I’m gonna go into the whole experience of it more than just my ideas about the barista so you can get more of the feel of being here.
Let me start by saying I really like this place and I’m glad it’s so close to my house. It’s adorable! Great decoration and stuff, and the neighborhood seems pretty tight with the place. Right when I came in, this guy was waiting for an older barista to finish with customers and gave him a big hug and had a quick chat. There’s a group of like 4 construction workers perched on stools at the table behind me having beers, hehe they look like birds on a wire cuz they’re big and the stools are pretty small.
I sat at a tall table, and tried to get the attention of one guy with a gesture and a “monsieur!” but he pointed me to the grey-haired worker behind the bar. Apparently the tall tables are his domain, so I got my seat settled and he said “bonjour” and I asked for my “café, s’il vous plaît”
It’s Europe of course, so he put a tiny cup of espresso on the bar and I hopped up to get it. In Portugal, Margaret got me into putting sugar in my espresso. I used to never use sugar because it never came out right, always to fakely sweet. Unless Otis made the coffee and put the cream and sugar in for himself – the man’s a genius with coffee. Ah, I miss them. I’d like to be on the porch right now for a breath of the morning air while he has a cigarette, sipping off his hot coffee to warm up from the cold snowy air. It’s only like 9:30am there hehe.
Ah well, I’ve had my time at that life. New experiences await. This is pretty exciting, I’m in a new place with a new language everywhere and new people everywhere! It was starting to get old, knowing someone everywhere I went in Urbana. It kinda hits me sometimes that there really is just French everywhere. I wake up in the morning and I hear girls talking in French. I walk down the street and kids rattle away in French. I walk past a construction site and guys holler at me in French. A lot of people I meet remind me of American friends I’ve had, except this is the French version. It’s the same in a lot of ways, just in a different language hehe.

Ok, back to my coffee. So I’m debating putting sugar in it, but all they gave me was this little brick of it, and the espresso cup is about twice the size of the sugar, so I really don’t want to put the whole thing in. I spent a minute with the little stirring spoon trying to break off some of the brick, but when I almost toppled the whole cup and saucer I decided to stop. I finally realized I should dip the brick in so some would melt away, and when I did that half the brick fell out of the wrapper into the cup. Turns out it was cut in 2 all along, so I got a pretty perfect amount of sugar. Now I’ve been writing so long it’s starting to get cold, ok, no more of this mundane stuff of my thoughts, let’s get to the topic at hand.
The question now is which barista to talk about. The first young guy I tried to hail down, the older bar-worker who gave me the coffee, a more heavyset guy who seems to do dishes and ring people up, or the guy working at the tobacco counter.
The 2 I talked to both seem really nice. I think the younger guy (about my age) is the son of the heavyset dishwasher guy cuz they’re having a conversation now and I can see that next to each other they look identical. I wonder whether the younger guy is in school. Definitely older than high school and he seems really on his shit and knowledgeable at the café, so maybe he just works here full time. Probably not a bad life, he seems pleased. Everyone working here actually seems pretty pleased. They have a great system of working in sync.
The neighborhood really seems to respect them too. I think that’s a difference between the states and here. What would be a “menial labor” type of job in the states can be a life career and not be a bad thing here. At least I’d like it, I did really like being a barista though, and who wouldn’t wanna live in Paris! On top of it I think they get much better government/medical benefits from any job in France.
The dad worker just came out with his coat on and helmet in hand. I think he’s saying bye to the son and probably some other parentey advice. He’s putting his helmet on, I wonder what kind of bike he’s got, it’d be cool to have a moped around here, but probably a bit dangerous. Ok, the sun is starting to set, it’s about 5pm, and I’ve finished my coffee. I think I’ll pay and go now. European coffee prices are great: only 1,20

WAIT A SECOND, I ACTUALLY LIVE HERE?

This last week (I wrote this mostly Sunday)–
Well I’ve spent just about a week in Paris now for real, and I love it! This is the first time in forever that I don’t have any real obligations, since I don’t start school until February. It’s quite unlike my typical life equation (18 hours of class+20 hours of job+club presidency+club vice presidency+friends-sleep=stressed out Lena). So I have plenty of time to get my stuff all organized, figure out my dorm, figure out my neighborhood, and chill with people ☺ After hanging up my travelin shoes, I realized just how temporarily I’d been living. My suitcases were still unpacked, my fridge was empty except for some cheese and crackers, and I was still using my coat for a blanket on top of just a travel sheet.
I have to give a BIG thanks to my mom for making sure I had a set of travel silverware and food for the plane. The food continued to be part of my meals until about Monday. That’s two weeks of relying heavily on cashews, craisins, crackers, apricots, and a bunch of tea bags hehe. When I’m in travel mode I really don’t need much. I hadn’t used real shampoo, conditioner, or a brush since I’d left Margaret, because a bar of soap works decently and is easier to fly with!
At some point that life gets a little trying, so I’ve spent the week making my dorm into a real home. I unpacked Monday, decorated, did some grocery shopping, and lots of wandering around in the days since. I’ve checked out 4 of the grocery stores within a couple blocks of me, which all have their strengths or deals on certain things over the other ones. I wanna start going to the boulangeries, epiceries, and boucheries, etc. soon, but I’ve gotta look up a little more vocab hehe. I got signed up for my classes, filled out some dorm paperwork, got my cell phone working, etc. K I’ll give you some key moments from the last week.

Monday - I met Antonia after school and got to check out “le Catho” – my new school. L’Institut Catholique is in the 6th arrondissement, so I made my way over there and Antonia showed me around. It’s pretty cool, an old style and a bunch of buildings all built up around courtyards. We went for coffee with Jordan and talked about traveling, and Paris and learning French. I can’t wait till I can understand French as well as they can, they seem confident that a month or so down the line I’ll be fine. I do feel like I’ve learned a lot this week already. I guess we’ll see.
Monday night – I tried to plug my extension cord into the converter in a new plug, it exploded, I screamed a bit, and all the lights went out. My room and the one next to me went dead thanks to my American plug hehe, but it was a great excuse to have a conversation with the girl next door. I forget her name, but she’s from the east of France, and I’d just learned the word for electrical socket (prise) earlier that day, so I could sort of explain what happened, and she could explain to the worker guy in better French.

Tuesday I cooked my first real meal – pasta, tomato sauce, cut up fresh tomatoes, and sautéed onions and red peppers, and milk. Mmm ☺ It was a bit haphazard though. I cut up the onions and red peppers and realized I had no oil, so I had to go back out and get some. The pasta was done, but I had no way to strain it. Fortunately there were a couple girls in the kitchen, and one said it was cool if I used her strainer and also her dishsoap afterwards. Ooo best part of the meal though I found the most amazing milk of my life. The company’s like all proud to have only French cows and French processing n stuff, it’s called “j’<3 le lait d'ici" or "I love the milk from here" how cute! and damn good milk. My electricity went out again after I just turned on some light, so I had to go back downstairs to get it fixed.

Wednesday morning – there’d been some misunderstanding when I went down to get my light fixed the night before, so a worker came pounding on my door in the morning to replace what he thought was a broken light. I woke up all confused and answered him in English till I realized where I was and switched to French. It’s times like that it hits you, wait a second I really do live in France now.
Wednesday – I went to a “centre commerciale” with Yoko to buy a blanket. We were just chatting online and she said she was bored, so I said I was gonna go “chercher un couverture” and asked if she wanted to come. But apparently I should have said “trouver,” otherwise it means “do you want to sleep with me?” hehe we had a good laugh about that. So we went to a mall by her dorm, got a cheap quilt for a wonderful 18 euro, and wandered around a few other stores checkin out the goods. Then we went back to the dorm and cracked open a bottle of wine. It was a really good time. I get some good practice with my French hanging out with Yoko. She’s really fun too. It was a bit easier though when Laura came back from class, cuz she could help translate.

Thursday – I found this awesome park by my house. Parc Montsouris was created under Napoleon the 3rd to give Parisians a break from the city. They made parks in all 4 cardinal directions and Montsouris is the southern one. It was an old stone quarry, then when they moved some city cemetery, they put all the extra bodies in the area where montsouris is now. There’s also 2 train lines that go thru the park so it was a bit difficult to build, but they did a great job. It’s huge, there’s a pond, a hill, a waterfall, a lot of lovely grassy and treey areas, a restaurant, a merry-go-round, and a bunch of awesome statues. There’s also a monument to a guy who was killed in WWI by a german bomb in that spot in the park. I haven’t wandered the park completely because I decided to chill on a spot on the hill to write and people-watch. A newly-wedded couple by the pond was taking wedding pictures (aww), there were a bunch of people just going on walks with their dogs, with people, with kids, on their own, there’s a load of different bird types, and there was this great group of boys running around and wrestling on the grass of the hill just below me. They were funny to watch because one boy was videotaping it, and they’d get most ridiculous or dramatic when they knew the camera was on them.

Friday – I went to the Louvre with Antonia and her art class. AWESOME way to go to the louvre. I got to meet and chat with a bunch of students in French, and see the louvre and a bunch of amazing art. But best of all we got all the background info about the artists, the meaning of the art, and the historical time frame in which it was created. I learned a lot more about the rooms as they were as part of the palace than I remember learning before. If you can look some of these up please do, because I didn’t bring my camera when we went, but it’s likely I’ll go back a lot so I’ll probably have pics in the future. It’s just a sampling of the things I really liked or got a lot of notes about.
Apollo Hall – awesome, it used to be decked out with kings in all the important slots, but it was burned in 1661 at the start of the reign of Louis XIV (he was a bit traumatized), so they redid the room. All of the important slots got filled in with artists and architects instead, and the ceiling is decked out to represent the cycle of the sun (in honor of the sun king).
Les esclaves de Michelange, Canova’s Psyche et l’Amour (love this one, we have a magnet on the fridge parents), La victoire de Samotrace (French name for winged victory) – I never realized how rare it was to have a truly Hellenistic piece, since most work you see in the greek style is merely roman copies.
La Salle des Saisons, Thomas Hardy’s La religion et l’heresie, Pierre Puget’s Persée et Andromède, and another one by Puget with a lion attacking this guy, awesome but I forgot the title. Alexandre rencontre Diogène I think also by Puget.
The four corners of the statue from Place de la Victoire – HUGE statues of slaves with differing ages and levels of rebelliousness left on their faces. They represent territories conquered by France I believe: Brandebourg, Espagne, l’Empire, Hollande.
Lastly we went to this room with a bunch of statues that came from Louis XIV’s private palace, Marley. Versailles was too big apparently, so he made a private palace (still huge and impressive), and it was of course destroyed in the revolution, so the statues that survived were moved to Paris. There were 2 at the Place de la Tuileries, and 2 at the Place de la Concorde, but now they’re just copies and the originals are in the Louvre. I believe Coycevox was the artist and the back two were Mercury and Glory, but I don’t remember the other 2. Anywho it was awesome.

Interesting initial observations of paris/Parisians:
- everyone’s frickin stylin. Heels, or awesome shoes, nice clothes and coats and scarves, everything matches. Even the weird items of clothing you see can usually be pulled off well by the person wearing em. They sell awesomely stylish clothes everywhere too, even the cheap places. I don’t know if the clothes stores came first or the style, but its pretty cool. I guess it can get a bit heavy though, it’s hard to feel comfortable if you go out without having put together a well-planned outfit.

- berets and striped shirts – a very stereotypical French style, you do see these items a lot, though rarely together. Berets a lot, but I feel like they’re pretty popular in the states these days too, it’s also winter, so hats in general are a good idea. Stripes aren’t as common as certain circles in the states though I’d say.

- cigarettes – frickin everywhere. They did ban them inside for the most part in France, but most cafes/bars have either a plastic-enclosed porch area with heat lamps, or a smokey room in the basement or something for people to smoke in. You can smoke in the dorm rooms though not in the common areas. Oh, craziest part – every European airport I’ve been in has had either a ventilated room, or a spot to go on the roof or something so people can smoke. They definitely wouldn't allow that at O'hare, major security breach to allow people outside.

- Dog poop on the streets – watch out for that shit, especially when its raining.

- Diversity – Really surprising actually, there’s a great deal of diversity here. And the people of varying races have varying levels of economic standing too, it appears. The bums and the stylish businessmen are all shades. Granted there are issues with immigrants and religion and such in France, the law they wanted about la voile was a big deal last year. But I think there’s a much more divisive socioeconomic and cultural line between the races in the states than here. My first night in town when we went to that bar the Frog, I was having a conversation in french with a couple guys, and the white guy was saying about the black – “see my friend here he’s just French. Not half-african, half-french or anything, just French. It’s so weird in the states how you have to divide people.” Granted I’m in Paris, not the banlieus. The history of racial division in the states is also a lot longer and more bitter than here. There’s pride in the cultural divisions in the states too, since we had a lot of sadness come out of the melting pot idea. I don’t know what to think of it yet, I need some more time here, but it’s definitely interesting.

Paris for Tourists

Last weekend was kind of a continuation of my international travel, so I’ll explain that first before I get to my real Paris life so far, full of small scale adventures. I’ll get to your blog suggestions as well, 2 are hand-written already!

Last weekend –

I met an American (I called him Indiana, but his real name’s Tyler) in Madrid who was coming to Paris the same day as me. So Friday I went to his hostel and chilled on some whiskey in the main room with him and a few new hostel friends. One girl was from Los Angeles, but lives in Aix-en-Provence now learning French, and she decided to take a weekend in Paris. These two American guys live in an apartment across the street, and teach English in Paris, but they come to the hostel to use the internet and hang out with people. And a couple of cool Irish girls, one studies in a town to the northeast of Paris I think? And her friend who’d come to visit for the weekend. They suggested a Chinese place across the street, so we got some sweet noodles for cheap.

I headed home before it got too late, and had a nice chat with a couple Parisians when I changed trains and couldn’t find the right tunnel to the 6. They were looking for it too, and one guy spoke a little English that he couldn’t wait to use on me. I spoke much better French than he spoke English though, at least after my glass of whiskey from earlier. I have a drink and my French is instantly 10x better, its crazy. I’ve either gotta drink a lot more around the dorm, or learn to gain a similar level of confidence in a sober state, in order to make more friends. I should probably lean toward the latter.

So Saturday I took a wander around Paris. I took the train north a ways with the intention of just wandering my way home, but it got really cold and rainy so I ended up just hoppin on the metro again. I did get to check out Les Halles (a really nice underground mall), though, and picked up some hair supplies. That night Tyler n a big group of hostel people wanted to go to a movie, so I tagged along. We saw the new one with Vigo Mortensen in it, really good, but really sad.

Afterwards some of the group went out and found a pub with tvs playing American football. Tyler’s a big colts? fan I think, I don’t know I don’t watch football hehe. I got to talking with a few international Parisians: A really funny German guy who grew up with an Irish friend, so his English had an Irish accent, a nice guy from Boston who’d learned French from a Canadian singer, and a girl from Wyoming who spoke English with a British accent and thought she was the shit. All three of them had been in Paris over a year, and had worked on and off at bars in the neighborhood so they knew a bunch of people around.

Me, Tyler, and these three peaced to a new bar at around 3, since the Wyoming girl (Kat) said the vibe was better. We got to talking with a few older Parisians who were really cool, and I did some translating for the conversation since Tyler doesn’t speak any French. The bar closed at some crazy-late hour again, but before we left Kat introduced me to a big group of other expat friends of hers who were all really nice and pleased to hear I was staying in Paris.

It’s an amazing city, but it’d be a hell of a lot better if the metro ran all night. We left the bar and decided to wait for it to start again. Tyler, me, and one of the older French guys we’d met went to a bar/restaurant/cafe by the Pont Neuf, right on the Seine, and got another round of wine. I don’t remember the French guy’s name, but we didn’t realize initially how bad his English was (he played it off well), so we’d been chattering away and leaving him out. At some point I noticed and started translating as much as I could. Him and Tyler had both been in the military, so they compared the French and American systems. Apparently there were French troops in Iraq before they officially said they wouldn’t be involved, interesting.

Sunrise over the seine, a metro ride home, and some much-needed sleep. Sometime mid-afternoon on Sunday I met up with Tyler again and we went to the Eiffel tower at around sunset. I know I know, it’s touristy, but it is a really great view. It was nice. Walked around a bit, and went home to my new home in Paris! Tyler’s probably either in Amsterdam or Copenhagen now, ah the life of a traveler.

Madrid pt 2

Photos: Sol Plaza and a Picasso piece from the Reina Sofia

The next day it took me a bit longer to get my shit together, but I ate breakfast, got out the door, and found my way to the Reina Sofia again. AMAZING! Different than the Prado, but possibly even cooler. The Reina Sofia is much more modern, and had a wider variety of subjects and ideas I could sympathize with, and less religious stuff than the Prado. I also got to spend a lot more time at the Reina Sofia. I put a whole bunch of pictures on facebook from my visit, so check em out, I even snuck a shot of Guernica!

So this was supposed to be my last real day in Madrid, with a flight to Paris planned for the next day (Thursday) at noon. However, traveling once again can be a pain in the ass, and I got back to the hostel to find an email from vueling saying my flight was cancelled due to airline workers on strike in Paris. I believe I mentioned that in an earlier post. Well I freaked out for a bit realizing I really couldn’t afford a train/bus ticket if this strike went on too long. But the strike wasn’t for sure happening yet, so I figured I shouldn’t worry till the morning.

I went to Puerta del Sol to meet up with a girl named Suzy. My friend Kat from U of I lived in Madrid for high school, so she introduced me (thru facebook) to a friend of hers who was back in Madrid for the holidays and we got together to chill. Suzy’s a blast! We went for tapas (sooo good!) and wandered around a bit. We were trying to meet up with a couple of her friends, but they were being shady, so we went back to my hostel to get my money and see what the Irish girls were up to.

The girls I’d hung out with the night before weren’t around, but we found another cool group playing a card game in the common room. We had a seat and it became a pretty interesting little get-together. Me (American), Suzy (born American/ raised Spanish/ lives in Italy now), an Australian girl, an American guy from Wisconsin, an Irish girl who’d lived in France when she was younger, a Brazilian guy with good English, and an Argentinian guy with little English. The conversation was half English half Spanish; really cool!

Suzy had to go catch the last train out to her part of town at some point, and the rest of us decided to go out to a bar down the block. Somehow I met some more Irish, a couple Italian Australians, and an American guy from Indiana and got to chilling with them (They were mostly at another hostel a block away). The Australians had rented a swanky apartment down the block for a month to take a vacation, so after a while some of us went to their place to chill.

I knew I might have a plane to catch in the morning, so I had to figure out at this point whether or not to go back and catch some sleep down the block at the hostel, and risk sleeping thru, or just stay up, make the plane, and sleep after. A couple people said they were down to stay up and wait for the hostel breakfast, so we did! It was really fun.

I went to the airport in the morning only to find that the strike did indeed go down, but I got a new ticket for the next day (Friday), hoping that it’d be over quickly. I went back to the hostel, changed rooms, slept for quite a while, and got up to wander a bit more. I went to the Reina Sofia (free for students) for a couple hours, and then figured I should see some more of the city. I went to Retiro park, which is really nice! It’s huge, and well designed. There was a great hill with this spiral sidewalk going up, flanked with those roman-looking pine trees. I felt like I was on Mount Olympus by the top. I could also see a bit of a soccer game in another part of the park.

I went back to the hostel when it got dark, and met the girls in my new room. They were from LA, and one girl was named Lena! I considered going out with them, but I knew 3 nights in a row just wasn’t happening, so I took a shower and went back to bed. The next morning I went back to the airport and successfully flew back to Paris, woo hoo!

Ya know, I wrote about how I liked traveling with someone, and I really did. Especially in the beginning, since I’d just moved out of a town where friends were around 24/7 for 3.5 years. New can be scary, so someone around is nice. And Margaret was definitely awesome to travel with, but I really got to like traveling alone as well. I was free to move in and out of groups of people or activities. The 6 Irish girls I’d hung out with were part of a group of like 60 from their college at the hostel, and they weren’t exactly reliant on the group, but they had to kinda let people know where they were, and couldn’t go out to the bar until everyone else did, etc. Within that smaller group of 6 there’s more constraints too, you’ve gotta wait until everyone’s up and showered and ready before you can head out for the day. Me? I could get up and out in minutes if I wanted. I was also one of the only people I talked to who had been to any museums around town. I told the Irish girls I was heading out for the Reina Sofia and they were like “oo how cultured of you!” I would hate to be stuck traveling with someone who doesn’t wanna see the city! Being independent definitely has its benefits.

Madrid pt 1

These 2 pics should have gone in the text somewhere, but hey, technology doesnt always do what it should, so the left is the madrid airport, the right is the almudena cathedral, notice the modern stained glass.

So we finally got on the plane and headed off for Madrid. Shortest flight of my life! We seriously waited in that chair-less, English-less airport (Lisbon) for like 10 times the amount of time we were actually on the plane. Inter-europe travel is great.

Interesting fact worth mentioning – I flew alone for the first time this last summer going to visit my brother in Nicaragua. Going from Chicago to France was only my second flight alone, yet I’m all over the place immediately after. It’s the same basic deal anywhere you go though. Even on a flight from Lisbon to Madrid where no one speaks English or French I can get the gist when they put the seatbelt buckle pieces together and point to the exits hehe.

The Madrid airport is gorgeous! It’s got this cool wavey wooden ceiling (see above photo) with tree-like poles supporting it that change colors down the line. And the organization is genius, it’s all in one building (as far as I could tell), and layered so everything gets a good amount of space and can be reached easily by the next section of the airport. The metro was right downstairs, and I spent a couple minutes with some Chinese kids my age trying to figure out just which ticket to buy before an older Spanish gentleman who spoke English helped me out.

Maybe I should explain why it is I’m in Madrid. First off, it’s awesome. But really, I knew I wanted to visit Margaret in Portugal, and I was going to head straight back to Paris from there. However, the plane company I found that had amazingly cheap flights (Vueling.com) was centered in Spain, so one had to fly to or from a Spanish city. I couldn’t get 2 flights on the same day, so I had to spend a night in Madrid. My brother, Owen, said “cool, Madrid!” and I thought, “why spend one night when I can spend three?” So I found a hostel, moved my second flight back a bit, and tried to find people I could meet up with in Madrid. Some time back my dad worked with a woman named Alicia in Chicago, and she now lives in Madrid. It didn’t work out that I could meet up with her, but when I was planning everything I had a great conversation with her about where to go and what to see. She also mentioned that the Metro was the best city subway she’d ever seen.

That brings us back up to speed, on the way to the hostel, I thought, “wow, Alicia had a point.” The Madrid metro is clean, quick, and easy to follow. I don’t know that it’s the best, but I definitely think all of the European subways would slaughter the CTA in competition.

So I get to the hostel, get my stuff to my room, and get settled for the night. The bunk beds at this hostel were TINY, I’ve never had to so literally crawl into bed. The next day I got up, checked out Alicia’s list of stuff, and headed off to find a museum. I got to the Riena Sofia, but it was closed, so I went to the Palacio Real (royal palace). Gorgeous, and gaudy, and similar to most other royal palaces. I tagged along behind an English-speaking tour group for a bit to hear about a few rooms. One was made entirely out of porcelain! All of the wall decorations of vines and idyllic scenes, etc. was all pieces of baked porcelain put together. Pretty ridiculous. One had a chandelier that looked just like a fountain. There’s one gaudy room for the king’s breakfast, another gaudy room for the king to be dressed in, gilt frames here, velvet wallpaper there, etc. It’s kinda cool to spend a day in a palace worth millions, that once was the center of a world-wide empire, and know I only spent 3 euros because of my student discount, woo hoo!

So after the palace I went to the Almudena cathedral across the street, which was awesome! It was absolutely massive, and had a cool compilation of artwork from different styles and periods of time. Apparently they started plans on the cathedral when the capital was moved from Toledo to Madrid way back in 1561, but they didn't get around to actually coming up with plans for a couple hundred years, then once they started construction, it got put on hold by the Spanish Civil War, so it didn't actually get finished until 1993. The design is old, and meant to replicate the palace just across from it, but the art inside is actually pretty new. After that, I went to check out some of the gardens around the castle, which were still gorgeous even in the rain.

Next I went to a big and popular street called the Gran Via. It’s kinda like the Mag Mile, big beautiful buildings, big street, lots of shopping and malls. I wandered around for a bit, and found my way to the Prado museum. I was trying to finagle my way in with a student discount, but they were more finicky than the other places and wanted the card from the European university, which I don’t have yet. But the lady said it’d be free after 6, so I waited at a café across the street and went back at quarter to.

They’re only open till 8, so I had a brief stint, but man was it AMAZING! They have soo much beautiful artwork there. You can track most of the history of art through that museum. Some classics – El Greco, Velasquez, El Goya

And some surprising ones - 2 about Joanna the Mad, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella I think, a queen who was famous for being crazy, a few by Corveggio, Botticelli, Rafael, and Mantegna (a bunch of Italians I didn't expect to see in Spain)

Ooh, but I was most pleased to come across Hieronymous Bosch! The garden of earthly delights is a weird and amazingly cool painting. I saw it once in a dark room in Venice, and that time my mom was through the roof to see it in person. This time I didn’t expect to see it, and it was well-lit in full glory! I spent my last 10 minutes or so just staring in awe, till the bell tolled and we were kicked out. I spent my next 10 minutes running around, avoiding security, trying to find the door I’d come in at, since I’d checked my coat.

I got back to the hostel, took the coldest shower of my life, and went to my room. I met a nice Brazilian guy who was staying in the bunk next to mine. He spoke Portuguese and a little Spanish, and I speak English, French, and a little Spanish. You can guess it was a challenge. He wanted me to join him to wander the street and look for a place to buy food. We went to some bar, and struggled through conversing. It was pretty interesting though. I’d try and say a sentence, then repeat some key words in different accents, or using different, more latin-centered words for the same idea, until finally it would come across. We chilled a bit in the hostel common room till he went to bed.

I started talking to a group of Irish girls sitting next to me in the common room. They went to the University College in Dublin (where my dad went to get his second masters!), and there was a group of like 60 in the hostel. They invited me to go out with them, so I got changed, got a little pre-game boozey and we left the hostel at like 2:30 for this club across town. I had a blast! We danced, we laughed, and I could understand everyone! For the most part… There’s a few colloquial differences in Irish that were interesting to learn. I’ll get into some of these later, but for now let’s just say it was “great craic!” (it was a good time).

The bar got out at like 5 I think, and as we were leaving one kid found out I Irish danced, so he made me dance outside while we were waiting for cabs. It turned out to be a good thing, because we were standing just off from the bulk of the crowd that had just spilled outa the bar. The crowd was pretty loud, and somebody from the apartment above threw a bucket of water on em which I narrowly dodged. Hilarious.

New assignment

Hey people,
So I just got this great suggestion from my friend Tim. He wants to live vicariously through me, and he's a big fan of blogs so now I'm opening it up to everyone. If you want to suggest something for me to do in Paris I'll try to go do it and write about it.
Tim: "Alright, first assignment, grab a cup of coffee in a cafe and tell me about the barista. Speculate on the sort of life you think they may or may not lead." Tim's a barista himself, so this is a fitting assignment hehe.
I still have to catch you all up on Madrid and my first few real days in Paris, but I've got some time now, so I'll get to it, no worries.
PS. I'm putting the bulk of my pics on Facebook, so if you're friends with me there go check em. It's a lot easier to load them there than here.

Rossio Square, Lisbon, Portugal


Plaza de la Independencia, Madrid, Spain
The bird sound is made by the lights when they're green or blinking

Lagos, Portugal
hehe, this is a funny video I didn't realize I had. A couple portuguese girls we were hanging out with were trying to take a picture, and had it on video on accident. So you get to hear a snippet of portuguese, and see the live action of what would have been a solid picture, it's like harry potter!

Lovely Lisbon

Hello world,

Another flight issue this morning, so i find myself with a bit of time to write to you lovely people. I´m in Madrid now on a computer with like 7 extra keys than im used to hehe. Every leg of this trip has had a different vibe, and its been awesome in different ways. Lisbon was more chill than Lagos, and Margaret and me did mostly touristy stuff, but we enjoyed it. We laughed our asses off! She´s the shit (for the not-so-slang-savvy among you thats a good thing). It´s fun traveling with someone because you have someone to share your perceptions with. Margaret´s really positive too, so everything that went wrong was more of a joke than a problem hehe.

Our first full day in Lisbon we got up early, had the hostel breakfast, and after seeing the rain we decided it was a museum day. Fortunately everything´s free on Sundays, so we hopped on a streetcar and headed to the Belem area. Ok, I´m gonna explain some stuff first. Lisbon has some cool history. They had a horrible earthquake in 1755 that decimated the center of the city. Our hostel was in this area - Baixa-Chiada. It was rebuilt by the king at the time who was really forward-thinking and decided to put it in a grid. This was great for us Chicagoans, or in Margaret´s words: "I could marry the grid."

One area that was relatively untouched was Belem - a town just to the south with a huge monastery and a defensive tower on the coast. The royalty was pretty freaked out by the destruction in the bulk of the town so a lot of people moved to this southern area and it got more built up and incorporated into the city. They have a lot of museums in that area now. We went to the monastery (amazingly beautiful, like a big lacework building), then the archaeological museum, had lunch in the cafeteria of the naval museum, and looked for an ATM in the modern art museum. They had the funniest gift shop there - all these extraordinarily expensive toys for kids. A train-looking spoon for 12 euro, a useless "candle-to-go" in a tin, and a coloring book that wasnt just a coloring book. In Margaret´s words - "My children will have only the best, francois-xavier and marie-antoinette the third shall have the Coloriage Experience!" At 18 euro a pop that coloring book must have been pretty awesome, but I have a hard time affording water these days so it wasn´t happening. It was worth a good laugh though for free! hehe

Then we went to the Monument to the Discoveries. It´s a huge sculpture with king henry the navigator at the prow of a ship/building and a retinue of scholars, adventurers, soldiers, etc. behind him. It´s huge and awesome! They built it for an exposition around the turn of the century, called " The Portuguese World." It´s like Portugal´s version of the Museum of Science and Industry. It was built for the exposition and wasn´t supposed to be permanent, but they redid the outside and kept it, and I think they made a wise choice. We went in and saw a movie, or had "The Lisbon Experience." It was awesome, we got a great overview of the city´s history, and got to laugh at how cheesy the movie was. We had the english version, so Margaret was mocking the movie for hours in a hoity-toity british accent. They made everything sound so epic. Typing wouldnt do it justice, ask margaret to imitate it someday - hilarious!

Then we went to the roof and got to look out over the city, it was beautiful! My camera was unfortunately dead on batteries at that point, so we only got mental images, but you can get your own someday when you go to Lisbon. Next we went for pastries. Pasteis de Belem (pashtayeesh day bell-em) have been made in this area since like the 1100s, so it was a necessity. It was sooo tasty. It looked like a little pie that could fit in your palm, but it wasnt a particular filling of a fruit or anything. Oh i dont know, it was flakey and sweet and amazing.

After that was the Coach museum. They have a whole museum dedicated to this gaudy-ass form of transportation loved by the royalty. It was actually pretty cool though. I never realized how cool a coach could be. They were works of engineering, fabric work, sculptural prowess, and each had a pretty cool historical moment in time when it was used. They had the coach of the last king there too. He was shot and killed which led to the start of the revolution and the period of totalitarian government. You could see bullet-holes in the side of the coach! They had a coffee vending machine that i hit up halfway through, so i carried my chocolatey caffe com leite throughout the rest. They even have amazing coffee from vending machines! I love europe. Well I guess it seemed amazing to me, a silly American :)They had a whole series of royal paintings upstairs too so we went around the circuit and joked about everyone. It was great.

We went back to the Baixa and wandered the shops a bit. February is sale month in Portugal, and they have an amazing multitude of boots everywhere. Awesome boots for 20 euro, awesome dresses and sweaters for 5-10, it was hard to turn away. We went for sushi for dinner. It was interesting. It was like a fast-food sushi place, the hand-roll came in a little box on a tray with a fountain drink and everything. hehe, i dunno why we chose sushi in portugal, but margaret had a mean hankering for some soy sauce. It was cheap and filling so I was down. Margaret was mostly packing at the hostel that night, but we had some cool conversations with the other people in our room. There was this couple from New York who are math geniuses and love to travel, and a couple of friends from Romania who are trying to see every major european city. I got to chatting with these 2 and we explored the hostel a bit. We ended up on the roof of the hostel! Amazing view of Lisbon, and a slightly scary fire escape method of getting there.

The next morning Margaret left early, so I slept in and ate breakfast with the Romanians. I went shopping with them for a bit, but I couldnt buy anything so we parted ways and I went to check out the ruins of a cathedral on the hill. It was pretty cool actually, this cathedral was messed up like almost everything else by the earthquake, but they left it as a reminder to the city of what happened. Its still gorgeous without a roof, you´ll see. They have an archaeology museum in the back of it too. Oh yeah! And the square in front is where they started the revolution. The totalitarian government had their offices and stuff centered around there, but the people gathered in the square and rose up against them. Pretty pimp.

I wandered around a while trying to find a grocery store, and ended up getting some sandwich that was like a gyro but with purple cabbage as a major ingredient as well. Got to the airport in plenty of time (I´m learning) and then had to wait a couple hours for a snow delay. Madrid got like 4cm of snow, but the whole city freaked out. Nothing was going in or coming out for hours, and I finally get to Madrid and there´s like barely anything on the ground hehe it´s no Chicago.

ok, I´ll just leave you with that and explain Madrid more later, I´m gonna hit up a museum. Hopefully the Paris airline workers end their strike by tomorrow, then I´ll be able to use my computer from the dorm yay!

PEACE

copyright infringement

I just had to give you a glimpse of portugal, so here's some googled images

1. Estacao do oriente, Lisboa
2. Lagos fort
3. the square down the block from our Lisbon hostel where we just went for McDonalds. I'd say it's a nicer intersection than the Elston/Irving McDonalds, but I can't diss the chi :)

Greetings from Portugal!

Hey everybody,
I'm in a hostel in Lisbon right now, and figured it was time for an update. I was going to try to put up some pictures, but it looks like my card reader isn't working, so you'll have to wait till I get back to Paris and buy a new one for some visuals. It's been a whirlwind of events since I last wrote, but I'll try and fill you in. Sorry I think it's kinda long, but its interesting and you get a prize if you get to the end ;)

Tuesday - I went to Foyer Masséna after last writing and met up with Stef (from U of I, on the last night of her 2 week visit), Antonia (U of I, and my paris program IPP), Laura (U of I & IPP), Yoko (Laura's tunisian girlfriend, Sorbonne), Jordan (U of I, IPP), & another french boy whose name I forgot. We had some wine and chatted away in an interesting mix of french and english. It was great to see Antonia and Stef again. Laura came back to U of I for christmas break, but I hadnt seen Antonia since October, and Stef moved to Bloomington too, so I'd only seen her once since September. It was cool to meet Yoko too, I'd heard a lot about her and she seems fun.

Antonia, Stef, and me then left for a bar called the Frog and the Princess (because it was on the Rue de Princesse), and met up with 3 other IPP girls and some of their french friends. It was a pub that was really chill, but pretty heavy with english speakers for Paris, which was good for Stef (no french), and a nice transition for me. I tried speaking mostly french, and I'm pretty surprised at my proficiency, it's better than I thought. Me and Antonia got into a cool conversation with a couple french boys about some differences between America and France. Apparently a lot of French think of Americans as snotty and rich, which is definitely the way a lot of Americans see French. I'm sure I'll learn a lot more about french perspectives of Americans the longer I'm in Paris hehe.

Then getting home from the bar was quite an adventure! The Metro stops running at like 1:30, so you have to take the night buses. Antonia and Stef were going back to Antonia's host family's, so I had to make my way home alone in a new city, kinda boozy, in the cold. Sounds awesome huh? Antonia pointed me in the right direction and I headed off, and promptly passed the first street I was supposed to turn on. They were on a bus and saw me walking, so they got off and we walked together to Chatelet, a point where we could both catch buses straight home. We crossed the Seine and passed Notre Dame and the city buildings surrounding Sainte Chapelle, it was an unusual way to see the famous Parisian sights, but it made the cold walk much more pleasant to know I live in frickin Paris! I got home safe and slept soundly with my coat as a blanket (I really have to go buy a comforter hehe).

Wednesday - I woke up an hour late after improperly setting my alarm. I was supposed to catch a flight to Lisbon from Charles De Gaulle at 2:05, but I got lost trying to find the right ATM in Paris, then got on the wrong RER train and had to get off and wait 40 minutes for another. So I showed up for the flight 10 minutes late quite miffed. I found a new flight online for the morning, and went home to finish buying the ticket.
I stopped at a grocery store on the way home and searched for my cheapest options for a meal, knowing I'd just wasted a 40 euro flight. I also haven’t figured out my dorm's kitchen facilities yet, so I went with crackers, mozarella, sardines, salami, and a big box of apple juice for 9,04 total. Paris is expensive :( I ate a bit and went to the computer lab to finish buying my tickets and to try getting a hold of Margaret (my friend in Lisbon).
They turned out to be impossible to purchase online and I spent 5 hours dealing with 3 different companies and both of my banks, on different websites, on the phone (skype), and in multiple languages to no avail. I really wanted to get this one flight, because it was early and cheap. Fortunately I discovered I could text Margaret so she didn't have to wait for me at the airport.
I gave up at around 11pm (23H00), and went to bed.

Thursday - got up at 5:00, called a cab (too early for Metro), and got to Orly airport. I successfully bought my ticket and got through security by 6:30. The flight was supposed to leave at 7:30, but it was snowing so bad that we got really delayed. We boarded the plane at 8:30, deboarded at 10:30, and reboarded again before finally leaving at 12:30. There was a really nice excentrically-dressed lady sitting next to me on the plane who kept cracking jokes about the airline. She was from Brazil, but spoke great French. She gave me a coin from Brazil as a souvenir and I gave her an American quarter. And guess what. Her name was Lena! What are the odds?
I made it to Lisbon and it was beautifully sunny and waited for a bus next to a palm tree :) How wonderful! Margaret had already left for our next destination of Lagos in the south, so I made my way to the Oriente train station (beautiful! wait till you see pics), and left for Lagos at 17H20. You don't realize how amazing language is till you don't have it. I know next to nothing in portuguese, and it was quite difficult to make sure I was on the right track, but gestures, smiles and thank yous (obrigada) can go a long way hehe.

I had to transfer trains in Tunes (toon-esh). Portuguese is so funny, they have like 4 letters that make a sh sound. I asked this older couple to make sure it was the right stop. It turned out they were French. They'd lived in Paris, and decided to retire to Lagos where life's slower and nature's beautiful :) It sounded like a european version of my parents with their Michigan house, so cute! I had a nice chat with them and I knew I was going the right way.
Margaret met me at the train station in Lagos, we walked to the hostel and made pasta for dinner. Then we went to a bar called the 3 monkeys with a couple Canadians and a couple Americans and played pool with a British guy and a Portuguese guy. Hostel towns are awesomely international!

Friday - Me and Margaret went for breakfast at this great little place for 3euro a plate, and a latte for 1,50! Portugal is a hell of a lot cheaper than Paris. We decided to check out the surfing situation, at the suggestion of one of the Canadians. Lagos is a major surfing town, and summer is apparently awesome insanity because people come from all over to surf. It's kinda like San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua. But in europe! Mid-winter you wouldn't expect you could surf, but Portugal is warm still, about 60 degrees farenheit most days.
So we were a little late to surf and decided to wait till the next day. We waffled a bit about doing it, thinking about the cold and the cost (45 euro). But they give you a wet suit, it costs a lot less than the $250 to get a lesson in hawaii, and how often do you get a chance to surf off the coast of Portugal? We bought our reservations and went to wander the town. It's a lovely little town, windey streets, ocean air, loads of shops and restaurants spilling out onto the streets. We went to the grocery store and got some snacks and a box of generic wine for 1,80 and went to the beach for a picnic. It was lovely, and this adorable stray dog chilled with us for a bit. They have really cute and well-fed strays here, its definitely no Nicaragua hehe.

Lagos used to be a big slave-trade port way back in the day so we saw a couple of the historic fort buildings too. We went home, I took a french placement exam for IPP, and we passed out for a bit. When I got up Margaret was asking for a seafood restaurant suggestion. The hostel owner's this New Zealander with dreds named Jaimie, and his girlfriend Allie is from Jersey and works at a bar in town. They told us about a cheap, delicious restaurant they love, and I guess we got a little confused on directions, cuz we definitely ended up at the wrong place.
We wandered across the river and behind the marina, past the end of the sidewalks and streetlights, past 2 roofless, tagged-up buildings, and found this shed-looking building that was actually a really nice restaurant. It was more expensive than we'd been looking for, but we got a couple soups and a Bream fish to split so it wasn't bad. Word of advice for those planning to visit Portugal: if you're poor, don't eat the bread and dip they bring out pre-meal. Margaret was wise enough to ask how much it was before we did, and he's like "not expensive, 4-5 euros." Sneaky devil.
Picking our fish was interesting. He insisted on bringing the fish out so we could examine them, and Margaret was against it, but I figured why not. So he comes out with this basket of like 8 recently deceased fish on a bed of lettuce, and I picked a 60 gram one while Margaret tried not to freak out. hehe, she wasn't raised to calmly continue eating cereal next to a dad fileting bluegills en masse.

The food turned out to be exquisite! The fish did still have its eyes and extremely long teeth, but it tasted damn good, and that's what’s most important in my book. We went back to the hostel and got ready to go out with Allie. I'm glad we came in winter because it's mostly workers who know the town in and out and know everyone else around. We got the inside scoop, and got to barhop with someone who knows like everyone in town.
Margaret went to bed rather early cuz she's got a cold and wasn't feeling so well. A bartender was kind enough to pour her a shot of honey rum for free, insisting it'd help hehe. I think it just knocked her out. I continued on with Allie and a few other friends of hers we picked up along the way. It was a blast! I talked with this Irish guy for a while who was from some town like 20 minutes from Cashel, so that was cool, he said to shoot an email if I ever go back there. The Brazilian guy from pool the night before was working at the last bar we went to, and we got to chill with some of his friends, real locals. Thanks to his translation the portuguese wasn't such a barrier :)

Saturday - Margaret got up to surf, but I'd only gotten to bed a couple hours earlier, so I stayed in bed. I got up at about noon and went to the surf store to see if there was a way I could meet her there. A couple british surfer guys who'd gotten up late and hungover as well were about to go, so I hitched a ride with them. It ended up being a whole adventure to get to the beach.
We went to the other side of the river in town to pick up one guy's sister who was visiting, and we ended up sitting down for breakfast. We absorbed another hilarious british guy who was drunk already, and the group of like 6 of us total eventually got in the cars. We went to a few friends’ places to pick up more boards, and finally I made it to the beach.
It was beautiful! There were these colorful rocky cliff faces and a huge stretch of sand. The water was decently warm, though the wetsuit helped. The waves were a blast! I’m no surfing expert, having done it only once in Nicaragua with the bro, but even if you don’t get up on the waves they’re fun. Margaret had been out all day and she’d gotten pretty decent at it. I was actually glad I wasn’t out all day, it was cold after a while. By 4:30 I was frozen, she was exhausted, and we left to get back and catch our 6:15 bus to Lisbon. We got a ride back in a van that was rigged up like an apartment. My seat was the bed, and there was a stove and shelves, and a mirror. The driver said he travels a lot to find good waves. The surfer culture is so funny, it’s like this international network I never really saw before Nica. Chicago definitely isn’t known for its surfing.

So me and Margaret made it to our bus, spent a few hours on the road, and arrived safely in Lisbon at this awesome hostel. It’s only 13 euro a night, it’s in a great location, and its beautiful! It’s really technologically savvy too. They had a projector playing music videos in the main room, and a row of computers for us. Every bed has a light and a plug. But the best part: our keys are wristbands with sensors on them, so you wave your wrist in front of the front door, the room door, and our locker doors to get in. How cool!
We went to McDonalds for dinner since nothing else around was open still at 11:30 when we got in. It's interesting to see a staple American business like that in a completely different context. The one here sells liquor, a wide variety of soups, a sandwich called the New York Crispy, a mcdonalds version of a staple onion-heavy portuguese sandwich I forgot the name of, and salads of much higher quality than in the states. It came with a little bottle of olive oil for dressing hehe. The staple big mac and fries was my dinner of choice, and it tasted great, I think the meat was higher quality.
Other updates: I guess Portugal is really close to legalizing gay marriage, so I'm hoping to see some celebrating in the streets soon while we're here. My back's been hurting a lot since surfing, and I really hope it'll be fine by tomorrow. I thought I lost my camera on the bus earlier, but it turns out it was in a pocket I didn't check. I'm glad I've managed to not lose anything yet! (knock on wood)
Alright, its late, so I’m gonna hit the hay. Tomorrow we get to explore Lisbon (Leesh-boah), yay!

Oh right, the prize. I’m picking up postcards as souvenirs from all the places I go, so you should email me your address and I’ll send you one! lenagreynolds@gmail.com It’s not really an exclusive prize, you might get one even if you didn’t read the whole blog, if I like you ;)

Peace out homeslice
and Boa Noite!

Paris baby!

Well today was the most arduous journey of my life, but I've made it to Foyer Tolbiac (my dorm) and I'm alive and well. I even hung on to all my crap. Today wasn't supposed to be so long or difficult, but traveling has a way of throwing in crappy surprises.
The first leg of the journey was Chicago to Munich. We left about an hour and a half late, but there was an adorable little girl sitting next to me chattering away in German, so it was at least amusing. We drew pictures :). I passed out pretty quickly after takeoff, and it was the usual on-and-off type of crappy airplane sleep, but I arrived in Munich with enough wits about me to realize we'd come in so late that I'd missed my flight to Paris.
My friend Laura was supposed to pick me up at the airport at 10:30 in Paris, but here I was still in Munich at 10:30, so I got a new flight, and freaked out a bit trying to figure out how to get a hold of her, thinking she was waiting there. They have sweet little pod-looking rooms in the Munich airport with computers in them, so I searched for her online, to no avail.
The flight to Munich was fine, I got a window seat and it was cool to see the snow in little pockets throughout the countryside. I mostly napped though.
Munich to the dorm was the most difficult leg of the journey though. I was getting in about 6 hours later than expected so I knew I'd find no Laura or help of any kind. I had to get a purse, a backpack, a fiddle, a huger backpack, and a huge rolly bag across the city with my puny little 100lb body. And it was rush hour!
Needless to say I got stepped on a lot on the train, but I kept a hand on every bag and nothing got taken or anything. There are a shit-load of stairs on the way, but I actually got a lot of help from people. It was so sweet, they saw me struggling and helped lift a lot. I was tentative to let anyone hold a bag without it being attached to one I was holding as well, but one lady by the end insisted and she seemed nice, so it worked out well. People were really nice with directions too, one older couple kept detailing the way the streets change names to make sure I knew I was going the right way.
There was almost a big problem when I got to the dorm. The lady said I wasn't supposed to come in till tomorrow. Im standing there sweating with all these bags i just dragged across the city thinking, seriously? So I said, well I'm here now, is there anything I can do? She went and talked with some people and returned with "tu as de la chance," the best words ever. I've got a single room, it's tiny, but wonderful. I'm living in Paris!!! A dungheap would be heaven
Well I got a hold of Laura (who incidentally got sick this morning and didn't have to wait clueless at the airport) and Antonia and Stef, and we're about to go out to a bar, so I'll catch you later!