Paris je t'aime

I felt like putting a weird structure to this post, lemme know if it’s too confusing. Everything got retitled post-writing basically, so it’s not entirely themed towards the titles, but it marches I hope.

Introduction -
Je ne t’aime toujours:
I was getting a little tired of Paris this weekend for a bunch of reasons. I love my friends here, but I was really missing my Urbana homies, and it can get frustrating sometimes when I can’t fully express myself with so many of the people I talk to. There’s a barrier there, though it is getting better, I can have intense conversations even if it’s not everything I want to say. French guys are annoying, way to pushy and persistent. I was also starting to feel the school stress for the first time, and now it’s all French, so the ideas of my readings may be great but they’re hard to access. Plus it was really cold this weekend, just when I was starting to think we were on an upswing of temperature. Granted it’s no Chicago hehe, but it was freezing all weekend, and your chill space is greatly reduced when it’s that cold.
However, the last 2 or 3 days have completely rekindled my love for Paris.

Monday –
After class I went to chill with my friend Jordan, and we looked at his gorgeous pictures and drawings of Paris. He’s got a love for the city more than any other American I’ve met here and is sure to live out his life here, which is awesome. So now I’m inspired to get out and draw some more again. Every frickin building is beautiful! But even the less traditional views are gorgeous if seen from the right light. The southern suburban view from his window looks over smokestacks and cheap highrises, but pictures of it at sunrise are unbelievable. The buildings reflect the sky’s colors back and forth, the smoke echoes the color in a different shade, and you can’t imagine it’s the same place.

Experimental dinner:
We went down and made dinner in the basement kitchen of their dorm, and made an odd concoction of pear, potato, meatball, pesto, egg, cinnamon, Tabasco, thyme, vinegar, olive oil, milk, and couscous with garlic and nuts. It sounds weird, but it was actually Really good! There were a bunch of other kids cooking and we all ended up sitting around this big table talking. They were first making fun of local neighborhood characters, but it turned to political systems and comparisons between socialism and communism, etc. It’s hard to participate sometimes, but it was cool. Their dorm socializes a lot more than mine, no computers at the dinner table, no countries keeping to themselves, it’s hard to crack the shell at my dorm. I think the fact that it’s coed, unlike mine, helps for some reason. French guys can be annoying at bars, but in their home environment they can be pretty cool ☺ I guess it’s like that in any country, hehe.
Then to conclude the day I went home after dinner and did some awesome readings on French feminism. This class gets me all fired up, I frickin love it!

Tuesday:
Thai:
After my Romantisme class I wandered a bit with my friend Alex. We went over by the Bastille and walked down any awesome street we could find. We found this sweet narrow street that was just so classic old Paris, but there was a restaurant Thailandaise on it! I worked at a Thai restaurant in Urbana for like 9 months, so I’ve been dying for some real thai food, in the way that some of my American comrades miss mac and cheese or peanut butter. We split an expensive but oh so delicious plate of pad thai, and had jasmine tea, and at the end of it I even got to say kapunkah (thank you)! Fantastic!

Revolution:
We saw the Opera de la Bastille and the canal that goes underground there, wandered around the square looking for the lines on the ground that mark the old Bastille building (destroyed by the 1789 revolution, as you know I hope), and talked with some money-raisers about cancer. I’ve seen the Place de la Bastille before, but I’ve never appreciated the monument in the center before. It’s a green pillar with a gold angel (mercury) on top, and there’s all these names carved in the sides. It memorializes those killed in the 1830 revolution. In the states we talk about the 1789 revolution a lot, and how it went into the terror and all and then led to Napoleon, but you rarely learn about all of the following revolutions. The 1800s are spewing with popular revolt, and I frickin love it!
3 of my 5 classes are talking about the 1800s right now, and reading literature specific to the sentiments of each period. The 1830 revolution has so much more meaning after reading the poetry of say Barbier, with a symbolic lion fighting so hard, but waking up to find he’s been muzzled. The glorious July revolutionaries are symbolized as a lion because of the astrological symbol. The Parisian people fought for a republic, and they destroyed the empire to get it, but what did they end up with? A constitutional monarchy under Louis-Philippe. Cheap compromise, waking up muzzled. So they revolted again! Hello 1848!
I wish the States had had more upheaval in it’s past. People are too content with the system. The popular view from my US generation seems to be: the government sucks, but there’s nothing we can do about it, once the last ignorant generation dies it’ll be better right? Personally, that shit kills me, and I have to get up and do something. Getting people fired up is hard though, and even when you do it seems like no one listens. The government doesn’t listen to the people, and the people don’t think they’ll be heard, but they have to make themselves heard! The French really do expect a revolution around the next corner, and a government should fear its people (in the words of V for Vendetta). The French go on strike and protest all the time, and it can be annoying when you’re trying to catch a flight, but it’s great at the same time.

More Wandering and Chicken fried rice:
Anywho, so we wandered west a little into the Marais, and found a couple of awesomely old medieval buildings that looked all tudor (a rare find indeed). Across from the Lycée de Charlemagne (in the former monastery buildings attached to St. Paul), there were some kids playing basketball in a court with a sweet wall. It looked like the side of a castle. Walked up, turned out it was! I love this city! We stumbled upon the last standing wall (huge) of the fortress of Philippe-Auguste, which he built to protect the city when he went off to fight in the crusades in the 12th century. Awesome! Then we found a new thrift store (the marais is full of friperies), and proceeded to dig through a 1euro scarf box for an hour or so. Then I came home, made some awesomely successful chicken fried rice with Sam and Nina, and did some homework. It was a good day.

Wednesday :
Chopin:
genre class, lunch, nap, errands, and picked up my Amsterdam train tickets at Gare du Nord, then went to a Chopin concert at the Cité de la Musique. Chopin is frickin amazing! It was his birthday last week I think, so they’ve been having a lot of stuff recently in Paris to celebrate, including a series of concerts. My Romantisme class has a lot of field trips to museums and stuff, but this one was different, and really sweet. It was only about an hour and a half, but the pianist was amazing! He was so into it, you could see the expression on his face change with the emotions brought out by the music. I could see his hands reflected in the open part of the piano, and you could just tell he had the whole crowd in his hands. He played Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, which I knew, and I just about died. In between at a few points everyone applauded, but at the end it was an explosion of cheers and calls of “encore!” This old lady next to me surprised me with her fiery calls. We’d had such a nice chat at the beginning about how we’d both played piano when we were young and missed it. She played violin too, and she spoke german, French, and English, though I insisted she speak French with me. She was so calm and refined at first, but when it came to shouting “encore!” she was a whole different person hehe. He came back for an encore.

Thursday (today) –
Foiled by the masses:
I was trying to meet my Romantisme class at 11 for a trip to the Musée Carnavalet (Parisian history, in the Marais), but there was a protest going on at my metro stop and I couldn’t get in. I was all excited when I first walked up, protests make me happy, but it turned out it was against abortion. I’m no fan of abortion or anything, but I’m definitely pro-choice. People are going to find a way, they have for hundreds of years, you might as well make it legal so girls aren’t dying in gutters.
I then became annoyed that I couldn’t get in to my metro stop, and consequently got to the museum late. I was trying to text Antonia to find out where they were in the museum, and wandered for a while looking for them, but she didn’t get back to me till I was leaving, since I thought class would be over. Apparently the teacher knew about the protest though so he said it was cool. I’m definitely going back to Carnavalet though, it was awesome, I love Parisian history, it’s right here!

Wandering and Hugo:
I had some time till my next class so I wandered and found the hotel I stayed at with my dad when I first came to paris in 8th grade. That was satisfying, because I feel like I’ve finally centered the Paris I saw then with the Paris I know now. Then I went in to check out St. Pauls, and then went to meet my friend Jordan for coffee by the Catho.
We had a presentation on Victor Hugo today, he talked about a section of Les Mis, this girl Ashley talked about his biography, and I talked about his poem “demain, dès l’aube,” which is frickin beautiful! I think our presentation went swimmingly, then we watched some of a video of the play we’re reading – Hugo’s Ruy Blas. It was hilariously over the top dramatic. Reading it its got weight, but the acting was just funny. I love Hugo, I’d marry him if he was alive, more attractive, and a little less misogynistic. I guess I wish I could marry his writing really. But that’s the beauty of reading isn’t it.

Thoughts on Catholicism:
On my way home I was talking with my friend Martha and missed my stop, so I took another route, and walked through Parc Montsouris to get home. There’s a church I’ve been meaning to check out over to the west a bit, so I went and saw that too. It’s kinda buried between the courtyards of other highrises, but I got in and found the adorable local chapelle de Sainte Jeanne d’Arc. It was deathly still and empty, but the stained glass was epic. I’ve gotta go back with my camera. It’s interesting thinking about France’s history with Catholicism. In a country steeped in “laïcité” (secularism), it’s frowned upon to represent your religion on the streets, and yet the country has such a base in it, churches everywhere, etc. I guess this church is newer so it hasn’t had the same drama, but St. Pauls had signs everywhere talking about how they got raped by the revolution.

Oh my god I heard the saddest story the other day. Apparently the courtyard in the middle of the complex of buildings that make up L’Institut Catholique (La catho, where I take 3 of my classes) was the site of some really heavy history. So in the period of the 1789 revolution, Catholicism was seen as an oppressive force in society equal to monarchy and aristocracy. King and queen, loads of nobles lost their heads, thank you guillotine. Not only that though. Specifically where I walk most every day, they rounded up a whole bunch of priests and nuns from local churches, and held them in the courtyard. They ended up executing about half of them, about 200 as far as I can tell. A nun told Alex, who told me, and her imitation of “cette endroit est très lourd” even gave me chills.
I like revolution plenty, but I like peace more, though there’s a lot at stake either way.

Conclusion -
Anywho, I just made some pasta to go with my daily baguette and bread, and I’m gonna go to Foyer Massena to either jam, write a paper, or watch a movie. Hasn’t been decided yet. Wish me luck in Amsterdam tomorrow! A bientôt!