La Fête Nationale

Like it or not... Happy Bastille Day!!


If you partly squint and mostly use your imagination, you can see the Eiffel tower in the background.

We saw the fireworks display from the Champs de Mars. It was amazing and went on for what seemed like forever. They don't kid around with their fireworks! Every time I see fireworks though, I think of the poor little Chinese kids in remote villages who've lost their digits so we can revel in our indulgence. Doesn't that put a damper on things? Someone, please tell me that's an urban legend...

A Conceptual Piece

(Placed) at a fixed point (Seized) from a fixed point

By the conceptual artist, Lawrence Weiner, who used language as his medium.

Which brings to mind David Sedaris' essay where he discovered crystal meth and conceptual art... "Either one of these things is dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations. The moment I took my first burning snootful, I understood that this was the drug for me. Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit? These are questions for insecure potheads. A speed enthusiast knows that everything he says and does is brilliant."

Shakespeare and Company

On our way home from the Marais, we stopped off at Shakespeare and Company. I was curious as to what the accommodations are like upstairs... here are some pics.




There is not a square inch without books.


You can see one of the bunks on which you can spend the night.


The little alcove with typewriter.


Another bunk.




Books, books, and more books!


View of Notre Dame from the vicinity of the bookstore.

Lookee here!!

A gigantic vending machine - need eggs? butter? diapers? batteries? Just head down to the super duper vending machine...

La Défense with Kim and Jeff

After lunch with Kim and Jeff at Cafe de Flore, we headed out to La Défense to see La Grande Arche. The white marble arch was built to commerorate the bicentenary of the Revolution. It is said that Mitterand wanted the steps at the bottom of the arch so that no tanks (especially German ones) would be able to drive through it.


You can see the cloud canopy at the bottom of the arch and the metal braces for the elevators that take you to the roof.


A close-up of the arch.


The cloud canopy and elevator braces.




View from the bottom of the arch. You can see the Arc du Triomphe in the distance.


Kim et moi on the roof of the arch. Thanks to Jeff, I have horns.


From the roof of the arch, you can see the Arc du Triomphe and Eiffel Tower.

Museé Carnavalet

I had a falafel especial at the famous L'As du Falaffel just before heading to the Museé Carnavalet. The falafel was ridiculously huge but very delicious and piping hot. However, it didn't sit too well with me, so I nursed myself on a bench in the courtyard of the museum. That's why you only get to see the outside of this museum.








My classmates waving at me from the inside.

In Search of the Best Museum Café

You know what's missing in churches? Cafés. Churches should have cafés. If they had cafés, people are likely to linger longer. On this trip, we've been to a fair share of churches and museums. On each church or museum visit, there is almost always a corresponding guided tour by one of our profs. Half an hour into the tour of a stuffy, non a/c'ed museum, A-D-D gets the better of us and we start our search for the museum's café. Pictired below, we are at the newly restored Petit Palais. That is, the café of the Petit Palais.

Dorm Rules

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but Paris has been sweltering since I arrived. It is a veritable sauna, especially in the metro. The French do not believe in, and consequently, do not like air conditioning. Therefore, not a lot of places are air-conditioned. And if by sheer luck, there is air-conditioning, it is nothing even close to what we would consider air-conditioning. According to my French teacher, there is really no need for air conditioning because Paris does not get that hot for that long. Er, how do you explain all those deaths during that heat wave just a few years ago? Anyway, she said in this heat, we all smell bad and that’s what perfumes are for. I am honestly not making this up!

The first week was traumatizing. We were lugging huge bottles of water everywhere we went. Every time I walked into a store, I anticipated a gush of cold air to rush at me. But that was never the case. I’ve since learned to curb that anticipation. I also learned that the coolest place in my neighborhood is the frozen section of Le Grand Epicerie at Bon Marche on rue de Sevres. I’ve since shared my secret haven to a few classmates who can’t thank me enough. We are even thinking we can help them inventory the frozen goods.

Because the window of my room is at an odd angle, I don’t get much of a breeze into my room. There is little circulation to speak of. On the first night, I tossed the bed covers and woolen blankets on top of the armoire. They have since remained there. I use only the threadbare top sheet. Some nights, I can’t even stand being under the top sheet. Most nights, I’ve had to resort to sleeping au naturel. Also, we have this inane rule of showers only between 7am and 11pm. We gripe about this rule most every night because we usually get back after 11pm, on the metro, which means that we desperately need showers. Last night, I snuck a shower at midnight and didn’t even bother to dry off. I resorted to sleeping wet from the shower because it keeps me cool for that extra five minutes as the water evaporates.

Things are getting desperate.

Au Revoir Les Bleus

La France a perdu. Viva Italia! The atmosphere last night was a stark contrast to the two nights when France beat teams to get to the finals. The streets were crowded with a lot of people but they were mostly silent. No honking of horns, no flags in your face.

These pictures are taken near Boulevard St. Michel right as the game started.







We couldn't find a bar to go to because every single one was packed. We mananged to find a sushi restaurant where they squeezed us at a table with other people. Sushi and World Cup - not too shabby.

Dorm Food

The foyer/dorm where we're staying provides breakfast and dinner Monday through Friday, which is great because food is expensive...well, everything is expensive...because of the exchange rate. However, the food...

For breakfast, we get coffee, tea, fake milk (hot and cold), baugettes, butter, jam, nutella, and honey. The fabulous thing is the nuns buy the baugettes fresh every morning! The first morning, I must've eaten a whole baugette by myself. It was warm, the butter was yummy, plus I had to have some nutella, some jam, some butter... But this is the same breakfast we get every morning and now after 10 days of the same breakfast, I have to force myself to eat the baugette so that I won't starve through the 3 hours of class I have each morning. I could wake up early to go to a bakery...but with all the late nights, that hasn't happened yet.

For dinner, we get an appetizer, a main course, a vegetable, a cheese course, and dessert. Each morning, the sister-chef posts the menu. Like the dorms at home, it always sounds so good. One evening's menu read: Asparagus, Turkey a l'Oriental, Salade, Cheese, and Yogurt with fruits. I was so excited about the asparagus (something green that is not lettuce!) The turkey a l'Oriental sounded sketch but turkey is good...even if it's slathered with sweet sour sauce or whatever it may turn out to be. And yogurt and fruits...yay! Well, that night at dinner, when the first course arrived, the spears that we were served were not green and spry like I anticipated. Instead, they were sickly pale and limp. Of course...white, canned asparagus. Flashbacks of food sorting at the food bank came to mind. I always wondered who ate all those canned food we sorted. And the turkey... looked nothing like turkey, tasted nothing like turkey, and no sweet sour sauce, to boot. We got skewers of very tough, unidentifiable meat and we were ALL trying to figure out what was "oriental" about it. And the yogurt with fruits...I was imagining yogurt with cut fruit, or whole fruit... turns out it's fruit-flavored yogurt. So, dinners are always adventures where we try to reconcile what we're pushing around our plates with what is posted on the menu.

After our very first dinner, I wanted to cry, thinking, "I'm in Paris and I'm eating crap at which I usually wouldn't give a second glance at home." Am I really in the culinary capital of the world? What's worse is everyone around me proclaiming that dinner was so good. The courses were so good. The profs even brought the sister-chef into the dining room where we clapped and gave her a standing ovation. I was really confused. Are these people honestly saying that the pork that was cooked to death, then rehydrated, then broiled and forgotten, then reconstituted with sauce, was good? Really? What is wrong with me? Jet lag? This same thing happened night after night for a week.

It was not until this past weekend, in the safe confines of St. Malo, far away from the Foyer and the nuns, that the truth came out. It took one person asking, "what was up with that pork the other night?" to get the ball rolling on the barrage of opinions on the food. Phew, I've not lost it after all. So you can imagine our excitement at Fresh Choice/Casino (see previous post).

How very, very sad.

Brittany and Normandy

This past weekend, we all piled into a bus and headed for the cooler climes of Brittany and Normandy. OMG, it was such a nice break from the stifling heat. En route, we stopped for lunch at a strip mall somewhere between Paris and St. Malo. We realized, then, that the rest of France lives pretty much like us. The mall had a Buffalo Grill, Toy "R" Us, and the equivalents of Target, Sportmart, and Home Depot. And the resto where we ate (and where the locals ate) was pretty much a Fresh Choice with alcoholic beverages.

Funny thing is, after lunch and back on the bus, we couldn't stop raving about the Fresh Choice equivalent (called Casino) because for the first time in a while, we were able to pick what we wanted to eat. Oh, I haven't talked about the food the nuns have been feeding us... that'll be another post...

Here are some pictures from our trip to Northwestern France:


Our group looking out at sea - St. Malo


We are walking on the city wall that surrounds the city.


The island on which Chateaubriand is buried.


Kayla et moi on the city wall with a cute street in the background.


These musicians are in Peru, Sproul Plaza, and St. Malo!


There was a Tall Ships Race the weekend we were in St. Malo. So the little town was inundated with foreign and local tourists and a lot of sailors! The prof warned us before we even got off the bus, "Remember these sailors have been on the ships for a very looong time. They only have one thing on their mind." Actually, I'd be more afraid if I were the sailors...but that is a whole other post...


View of Mont St. Michel from afar.


Mont St. Michel up close.


Drawbridge entrance to the abbey.




Cloisters at the abbey.


Moules frites!

The following pictures are of our visit to the D-Day landing beaches and memorial.


The memorial as seen from the back.


This statues depicts the soldiers resurrecting from the waves.


Names of the soldiers who perished.


Cemetery for known and unknown soldiers.














Omaha Beach