degrees apart

the continued adventures

2005-06-04T22:01:00.000-04:00

Readers crave more! Well, my mom does, anyway. I'm not terribly excited about my New York journal -- no photos, pointless ramblings, and links to quizzes and other cultural dead ends -- but per request I'm posting the link. Not necessarily representative of my actual life.

one last quack

2005-05-27T20:24:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I'm not sure if this is going to be my last entry from Paris; I'm still here for one more night after this one, but it's hard to say how much of a writing-mood I'll be in.

It seems like I should have at least dug around a little in my extensive collection of photos from around Paris for at least something featuring a monument, or something pretty. Maybe I still will, for that matter. But for the time being, why not just some ducks. I took this picture earlier today, actually; I was sitting by one of the ponds in the Bois de Boulogne and fed a Wasa-cracker to this family of ducks. It's been quite warm here lately, so it wasn't a bad deal at all to escape my stuffy room and sit under a shady tree by the pond. On the way there, I made my first and probably last purchase from one of the open-air food markets, and bought a small bag of cherries to eat by the pond. My original plan was to rent a bike, but that didn't end up happening, since I couldn't find the bike-rental place that supposedly exists near me.

Tomorrow, I've set aside the whole day for getting myself organized. I have no good idea for just how long that will take, even though I've moved myself out of dorm rooms in the past. I keep alternating between being totally relaxed about the whole thing and feeling like I've got all the time in the world to pack up, and then suddenly panicking about something random ("I've got to clean out the fridge!") and worrying that I won't have enough time to get everything done.

I guess in the same vein of ambivalence, I keep alternating between being upset that I have to leave Paris and then suddenly being impatient to be back in the states already. The past week or so, everyone else here has been discussing various things that they'll miss or won't miss; I'm sure when it comes down to trivial list items like cheap wine or early store closings, the two sides are about even for me. But I don't know, an interesting thing that happens when you start adding up cultural quirks, positive or negative, is that you get this sense of place, and you can almost visualize what it is that you've been at the periphery of, as a witness, I guess, for the time spent here. I don't consider myself by any means Parisian, but I like to think that I wouldn't be confused with a tourist; I've gotten to the point where I can watch exchanges between tourists and locals, and know what both parties are probably thinking to themselves, but I only feel slightly more affinity with the French side of those encounters, and usually that even depends on the situation.

I guess it's best that I'm headed to New York after this; the culture may be a completely different one there overall, but I'm looking forward to being extrememly awkward as a result of reverse-culture-shock, and having no one notice at all. You don't need much sense of national identity, I don't think, to make a home in New York.

With that, à bientôt, Paris.

she was probably eating ice cream

2005-05-26T13:06:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Today was my farewell visit to the Louvre, and was supposed to be my last crepe as well, except that my favorite crepe-man wasn't in his usual spot today. It's been hot the past two days here -- around 24 degrees centigrade, whatever that might convert to -- so maybe the crepe-business isn't really all that booming at midday. Understandable enough.

I went on my tour of my favorite wing of the Louvre, the Greek and Roman sculptures (but mostly Greek), and went through a temporary exhibition that I really liked on "La France Romane", which was a collection of art from the Middle Ages, including a lot of manuscripts, which I always enjoy.

Venus de Milo, above, was surrounded by tourists almost as much as the Mona Lisa is; I took a few other photos of her facing the crowd of fellow photographers. The amount of American tourists hasn't really dropped off since March, when I first noticed an increase. Before going into the Louvre, I was sitting outside of a cafe nearby (Le Fumoir!) perking myself up with some coffee, and it was funny to watch people hesitate in front of the cafe, consider the prices, and then, more often than not, seek out something less obvious than the cafe directly behind the Louvre. I wanted to say to some of them, Just come inside, you're just going to tire yourself out if you keep walking, and this place is perfectly fine. But I'm no guidebook.

The possibility of trying to come back to France to do research for a senior thesis is a strong one, though I'm clearly lacking a lot of direction in that regard at present. But seeing the exhibit today at the Louvre -- even though it's only a temporary one -- illuminated something that I already knew but had never really thought about, which is that France is probably among the best places in the world to do research on Romanesque art. It's also not a bad place to look at Greek art, for that matter, since French along with British empires pretty much took anything good out of Greece, as far as I can tell based on their respective museum collections.

Anyway, those are thoughts that would be better solidified with the help of someone at NYU, I guess. I finished my walk around central Paris with some ice cream (Haagen Dazs, which, yes, is made in New Jersey), and then went on my probably-last trip to Carrefour for some dino cookies and a bottle of wine, both of which are coming back to the states with me.

final rites

2005-05-24T13:52:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Inexplicably tired today, I wasn't able to get much of a start on what I intended to be a week full of Paris-sightseeing. I might just have to make a sightseeing to-do list, on top of the packing list and general-errandry-lists. Less than a week to go, for me; the first wave of departures was this weekend.

Speaking of those departed, here's a springlike shot from the Pere Lachaise cemetery, which I'd never been to despite hearing great things about this parklike place. It's sort of towards the eastern edge of the city, a long trek from my house (as are most places in Paris that I enjoy, when it comes down to it). I think most people seek out the celebrity graves -- Proust and Balzac and Wilde were a few that I saw, and we somehow managed to walk past Morrison without seeing it. I got creeped out by the crematorium (definitely up there on my list of scary basements, despite it's polished look).

Someone commented that, in terms of weather and day-length, things are pretty much the same as they were when we first got here in September. I think this feeling is now compounded by the fact that people are leaving; whereas I didn't know anyone here in the first place, and did a lot of my first wanderings on my own, now I'm doing things alone because a lot of the people I would normally call for company have already left.

I guess it's been a year. Mosquitoes are starting to seek me out like they did at the start of September; this time I'm at least armed with bug spray that I got for Morocco, though it smells almost too floral to be effective. I'm starting to work out my actual working-hours with my internship in New York, where I'll be in two weeks. That whole other-life, resurfacing.

some rocks

2005-05-16T11:38:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

This is probably one of my favorites from the Morocco trip; I was so impressed by the Cascades d'Ouzoud that I took about thirty photos just like this one while there. Strange how photogenic rocks and water can be.

The Cascades d'Ouzoud are about three hours' bus ride to the east of Marrakech; this was a really pretty, somewhat mountainous area. We meant to just go for the day and head back to Marrakech by night, but decided to stay the night here once we started walking around the waterfall and the little village of Ouzoud.

Continuing this theme of looking at aesthetically-pleasing pictures, it's about time to study for the art history final this week; although I guess I'd be more likely to put most modern art under the category of "challenging" or even "frustrating".

This reminds me, I keep meaning to visit the Louvre one more time before I leave Paris (in just two weeks!). Lots of places, actually, that need to be visited.

tangents

2005-05-13T06:48:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

From Marrakech, a photo that is currently doubling as a sort of study-break for me as I'm in the NYU library working on a paper. I'm so close to being done with the written components of my classes this semester, but obviously still have to actually finish everything.

Quand même. It already seems a long time ago that I was wandering around the red Marrakech walls pictured above. No matter what direction you set off in, it seems like you're always running into a wall in Marrakech. I don't mean that to sound like a poetically negative sort of thing; it's just an element of the city's layout, I guess, and actually kind of cool.

A series of random things I just noticed that make me like the place I'm at right now: I have in front of me my new favorite Reverdy poem (La fuite du temps), I'm wasting time by posting photos from Morocco, and somewhere in the periphery of the library is a dicussion on female archetypes. It's sort of an understated, emblematic study-abroad moment.

breathe deeply

2005-05-10T13:45:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

In the midst of paper-writing-week (to be followed by the equally joyous final-exam-week), another Morocco photo. This one is from the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech, a small but lovely garden in the Ville Nouvelle. Lovely as it is, there's an entrance fee involved, which means that the place is probably only visited by tourists. In fact, even though this picture doesn't show it, the garden was packed with French tourists when we were there; it otherwise would have been a restful place, except that we had a hard time finding anywhere to sit down.

Anyway, I didn't exactly find inner peace while there among the French tourists, but maybe the peaceful photo will provide a moment of zen for those of us looking forward to a series of long nights at the computer.

beach scene

2005-05-05T06:15:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

It seems I'm working backwards through the trip, in terms of photo-posting; this one is also from Essaouira, which is where we spent the last half of the trip. The beach at Essaouira is long, and curved, with this point where the fortress ruins are being the furthest out (sensibly enough, I suppose, for a fortress location). This whole stretch of the Moroccan coast seems to be interspersed with beaches, from what I can tell; looking either way down the coast we saw nothing but more beach, and when we drove along the coast on our bus ride down to Agadir, it was pretty much all beach.

We lucked out, in a way, with the weather at Essaouira, though we didn't realize it at first. We'd heard that this was a place well-known by surfers of all varieties for its excellent surf, but when we arrived and saw the comparatively tame surf we wondered where this reputation had come from. Fortunately, we hadn't come to surf, so we were able to sit on the beach and swim. As it turns out, though, Essaouira is normally a very windy place, and we found this out on the third day of our stay there, when we tried to sit out on the beach for a little while and were pretty much blasted with sand the whole time!

This was the same day that we decided to try the camel-riding adventure promised at the other end of the beach; we trekked down there, watching some impressive kite-surfers along the way, and shortly found ourselves astride "Max" and "Simon", sauntering at camel-pace towards the ruins pictured above. Here we got off for a minute to climb around on the rocks and take pictures, of which the one above is an example. The main Essaouira beach is in the background, and I think part of the town as well; it's a fun, laid-back place, and kind of a funny place to haggle over anything because people are so much more relaxed about it than they are in the intense Marrakech souks.

Anyway, I don't think I even meant to write that much! But there it is, a picture of the Essaouira beach, taken from the fortress ruins. I have no idea how old the fortress is, by the way, but it's hardly recognizable as a human construction anymore, with a few exceptions like the cut rocks in the photo. I'm not sure how much can be attributed to the ocean, or the wind, or just wearing-down over time.

sunkissed

2005-05-04T14:55:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Sometimes I look back at the photos in my ever-growing collection and, in cases like this, can't believe I was actually physically there to take them. The unreal sunset photo above was taken a few nights ago from the ramparts at Essaouira. I'm becoming a big fan of ramparts.

I'm not sure if or how I'm ever going to do a Morocco-trip summary on this page; there's a good chance, considering the schoolwork I've got to do to wrap up the semester, that I'll just post photos. And, of course, I'll talk at length to anyone interested about the trip -- we really had a great time. Hopefully the photos will speak for themselves this time.

cliff-edge panoramic

2005-04-20T14:47:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

A view from one of my favorite spots in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, on the hill that I refer to as the "tourist hill" (despite the fact that I'm probably the only non-Parisian in the park). Usually there are people perched on the rocks around here, being a great place to sit in the sun and simultaneously tempt death, as there's a cliff dropoff right behind where the rock ends. Parents are forever getting after their kids on this hill, for climbing on the irresistable rocks; I probably would have gotten in trouble not so many years ago for doing the same. In fact, I still might.

I'm leaving Friday morning for Morocco, so this will quite likely be the last entry of April; if I actually have the energy on May 4th to post a picture, I'll do so. Hard to predict.

I think it's safe to say that pretty much every Parisian university student is anxious for the end of this week; all of Paris goes on the same two-week spring break, so the University of Paris buildings as well as the little NYU house will all be quiet for the next two weeks, while the students have their out-of-town adventures.

Then after that, only two weeks left of class. I think it might have been about this time last semester that I started feeling kind of sorry for the kids that were only staying for the fall term, since their time was almost up and it felt as though it had hardly begun. I guess I knew even then that it was only a matter of time before the year ran out; I should have seen it coming, maybe, but I'm feeling a little blindsided nonetheless.

set it to light

2005-04-17T04:29:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

The benefit of having a friend who lives in the sixth arrondissement is that it provides a place to crash at night if I miss the last metro -- as I frequently do. In honor of late nights, a sunrise-picture, taken randomly through said friend's window; what woke me up that morning was the rose-colored light filtering through the window.

This time next week, I'll be in Morocco! I have yet to buy a few necessary items (sunscreen being one highly recommended, and also, toilet paper) and I think the bulk of this week's waking-time will be dedicated to getting all things academic in order. Or something approximating order, anyway.

Today, for example, will see me at the library; I'm already not looking forward to standing in the entrance line for upwards of half an hour, but since it's looking like a nice day maybe most people will decide to go to a park or something instead.

Actually, there's a good chance that's what I'll decide to do. Focus, Sally! Schoolwork-in-spring is not an easy thing to concentrate on, especially when the sun keeps rising and setting so prettily.

a most pensive pigeon

2005-04-09T19:35:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I don't normally title my pictures, but considered making an exception for this one and naming it "Pigeon ponders the Tulips", as I realized midway through taking it that said pigeon towards the lower edge of the picture is essentially a focal point. The building in the background is one of the outer wings of the Louvre.

Anyway. Tulips! It's cold in Paris at present, but at least it didn't snow today as the forecast said it might. Pretty much everybody here has someone visiting them this weekend; I'm getting into a routine, more or less, of seeing something museum-y, having a good dinner, going out afterwards, and then sleeping for a long time. Some coffee, interspersed throughout.

Did I just make up the word "interspersed"? Well, let's see, even if I did maybe it'll be one of those that makes its way into everyday speech just out of popularity. Because there definitely aren't about twelve synonyms with fewer syllables for whatever I'm getting at.

Despite loving sleeping-in as I do, tomorrow morning will be a weekend-with-alarm-on day for reason of a lunch out in the suburbs. This, I think, is going to be one of those lunches that will keep me occupied for the rest of the day. In good French-lunch-guest fashion, I'm bringing flowers.

tonight, i'm trading jobs with this guy

2005-04-04T18:46:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

So, now that it's getting late on a Monday night and I have homework yet to do, what better way to get into the swing of late-Monday-night homework than to post a photo of someone else working late at night.

Stumbled across this as we were heading back to the metro on Saturday night; as it's in a neighborhood I frequent, I'm surprised I haven't noticed this before. A bakery chain on a street corner has a window looking into its massive kitchen -- so yes, this guy is making baguettes. The sheer volume of the batter impressed me more than anything else; unfortunately I couldn't get the giant vat of it in this picture.

better by twilight

2005-04-04T01:07:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

An extremely early-morning entry; the sky is just starting to lighten. One of these days I'll get this insomnia thing worked out, I imagine; for the time being it's easier to just work around it and enjoy the various atmospheric effects in the meantime.

First weekend of three with me playing translator-tour-guide is down; the past three days have been some of the nicest in terms of weather that I've seen here in Paris. I guess the whole April-in-Paris thing might have some merit to it after all.

One of this weekend's dinners, in fact, ended up being in picnic form at the spot pictured above, the Canal St-Martin. I led the tour party there with the vague idea that there was a small cluster of cafes, but then we ended up deciding to take the cheaper option instead and feasted canalside on grocery store goodies.

Discovered also: a mom-and-pop sort of Greek restaurant on the beloved Rue Mouffetard, and a good place for outdoor-eating near Place de Clichy that puts glowsticks in the drinks.

And as long as I'm writing about food: my favorite crepe man of Paris recognizes me now, and thanked me for my loyalty! Next week, he gets to meet my parents.

It's kind of too bad that this is about the time for me to start thinking about final papers and such; if only I could have somehow packed all that in while it was cold and dark and precipitating. Well, I guess it'll rain yet.

am i parisian, then?

2005-03-30T16:58:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I was sure that I'd posted this one already, but I think the only reason it looks so familiar to me is that I have it set as my computer background. An abstract sort of shot from a bar in Berlin. I don't remember the place being quite that red, but whatever, it turned out looking alright.

I vaguely remember making a comment maybe last April about how very crowded the NYU campus seemed to be with all the prospective students visiting during their high school spring breaks. Seems like another popular destination is Paris; I was walking past Notre Dame and Hotel de Ville earlier today, and I don't think I've been around so many American K-12 students since I was one myself. Hey, since I can still pass for sixteen, maybe I should try to sneak in to one of these big school groups and see if I can get a free lunch out of it.

I also just had the random thought that a phrase like "pass for sixteen" would make absolutely no sense if directly translated into French.

See what happens when I post a photo from one city and then talk about another one! Thoughts go everywhere. I have visitors-from-London this weekend; visitors for the next three weekends in a row, in fact. I guess I'll just stay put.

blastoff!

2005-03-29T15:15:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

A curiousity on Canal St-Martin (the Eiffel Tower morphing into a spaceship?), and a link, mostly so that I'll remember to go back to it myself: Kelly's Morocco trip.

No, I don't know who Kelly is. But guess where I'm going on April 22...

suburban weather center

2005-03-27T13:03:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Some full-moon loveliness from the other night. I'm in a photo-posting mood, I guess; I've spent the past hour or so more or less just looking out my window here, as some kind of crazy sudden rain/hailstorm just passed through. One cool thing about living in the western suburbs and having a Paris-oriented window view is that storms tend to move over the city from west to east, so after storms pass over my house in Boulogne, I'll often see rainbows over Paris as the storm settles in there. I've yet to take a good picture of one, though; I think it's one of those temporal things you kind of have to be there for.

in the meantime

2005-03-27T09:44:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

A bus stop in Boulogne -- unfortunately not one that I'd ever have much reason to wait at; I just passed by it on the way to the Bois de Boulogne yesterday. I like the way it looks like the seats just happened to grow out of the clump of ivy.

It's another sunny day, good for park-sitting and similar not-library-oriented activities. But I should really go to the library; so to compensate, I'm going to the one at Pompidou, so that I'll at least be able to hop over to Buttes Chaumont for a little while post-studying.

Looking into classes for next semester -- I'm thinking of taking German! If I end up with the schedule that I'm aiming for at this point, I'll have a lot of languages going on: elementary German, a class on existentialism in French, a critical theory seminar in English, and modernist poetry in English (a class which is crosslisted in the Russian/Slavic Studies department, so I'm guessing that the works will mostly be in translation).

eastside delights

2005-03-20T07:20:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

First day of spring! The weather here has been fanstastic for the past few days, and I'm going to try to take advantage of it again today with possibly a rental-bike-ride around the nearby Bois. But were it not so far away, I'd go back instead to the park pictured above, the lovely Parc des Buttes Chaumont up in the nineteenth arrondissement. Yesterday I spent a good four hours there, alternately wandering around on the hills, taking photos, and reading (Catch-22, which I don't know why I hadn't read before). Jardin Luxembourg gets a lot of publicity as a nice place to sit out in the Parisian sun, and it is, but here I had the impression of being in an area that tourists rarely, if ever, visit, which is something that I feel like I almost never run into.

Wandered also around the neighborhood and along the nearby Canal St-Martin; the neighborhood has a much more laid-back kind of quality to it, and I'm beginning to think that maybe I haven't been doing myself any favors by spending most of my time in either western or central Paris (or Boulogne, I guess, but it's not really all that different there from the sixteenth arrondissement). And it's a pity that my new favorite neighborhood is an extremely long metro ride from my house; but I guess if it were the other way around, I'd have a painfully long commute to my NYU classes each day.

Anyway, time to try for some bike-riding, I hope! If it turns out that the bike-rental people I remembered from the fall aren't there today, I think I'll take it as a sign that this neighborhood doesn't want me anymore and take the next eastbound metro.

one continent to the next

2005-03-15T16:47:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Another pretty one, this one taken from the beach at St-Malo.

It's really feeling like spring right now in Paris -- so much so that I even walked home from school after my class this evening, which is a good 45-minute walk for me. Being so close to the lovely Bois du Boulogne, I might be tempted one of these warm days to rent a bike from the people who I remember from the fall, parked out by one of the metro stations. Wonder how much that sort of thing costs, even.

I stumbled across the journal of a girl currently studying abroad through NYU in Ghana; I don't know her at all, so it's a little weird to post the link to her site here, but she's a ridiculously good writer, so I'm posting it anyway: Ghana stories.

civil action!

2005-03-10T06:33:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Usually I wouldn't make it known that I'm skipping class today, but in this case, it's as a result of a transit workers' strike; whether or not my class at the University of Paris is even in session today, I wouldn't know, because I couldn't physically get to the building! People knew about the strike beforehand, and were sort of starting to plan around it -- kind of in the same way that people on the East Coast plan around a blizzard forecast.

I walked into the NYU building -- doable from my house, but not something I'd want on a regular basis. Definitely can't walk to Jussieu from here, though, which is where today's class is. A day off, then!

In completely unrelated news, the above photo is, again, from Mont St-Michel; somehow the sandy landscape reminds me of The Little Prince.

by the sea

2005-03-07T11:15:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Not bad for a picture taken from a bus. This was my first clear sight of the lively Mont St-Michel, which I was visiting on Saturday with the NYU trip. I was told that there are about twenty people that live on the island these days; I imagine gossip spreads pretty quickly. This picture was taken at low tide; the island at this point was surrounded by sand, which turns to water as the tide comes in -- but the recently-constructed causeway (well, relatively recent, I guess, for France) is never submerged. Probably a good thing for those twenty island residents, considering that the place doesn't have so much as a grocery store.

We spent a few hours touring around the island; there's a lot of climbing involved to get anywhere, but it's well worth it for the views of the surrounding landscape and the just-visible Atlantic ocean. I'm glad we had a nice sunny day while we were there; it was pretty cold, but not any worse than Paris has been recently.

weekend trip!

2005-03-06T13:18:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I'm nowhere near being ready to post a summary of my weekend trip, but I had a really fun time; we went to the town of St-Malo and then to Mont St-Michel, the photo above being from the latter. Enjoy, and stay tuned.

foreverfully falling snow

2005-03-03T07:20:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I came into school today with the aim of actually doing some homework, and after about half an hour of playing around on the internet, it's looking like I'm not going to be as productive as I'd hoped.

I'm actually running out of recent photos to post! But not to fear -- tomorrow I'm going on a NYU trip to Mont St-Michel, which will be cold, I imagine, but with luck also quite pretty. Birthday festivities, very disorganized (but I think fondue is going to be involved), are tonight. Thanks to all who sent out cards and e-mails! I've been pretty bad about responding to mail as of late; have patience, I'll get around to it eventually!

As a side note, it is kind of pointless to turn 21 in Paris, I guess; I knew that going into it. But it turns out that Paris is, regardless of age, a great place to have a birthday in general. I just wish it wasn't so cold and snowy at present, but until I move to the southern hemisphere, I think that's just the way it's going to be.

Side-side-note: my alarm clock, when I woke up the morning of the first, displayed the date as February 29th. A little love from the digital world, I guess. I haven't corrected the date yet.

vote with confidence!

2005-02-23T10:53:00.000-05:00

Two very unexpected things have arrived this week in Paris. The first, an accumulating snowfall, a contradition to my previous belief that Paris doesn't get snow. The second, someone's absentee ballot form from Florida, just in time for the presidential elections.. oh, wait, it's February.

time flies like a chicken

2005-02-21T11:14:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Somewhere in my Time Out Paris guidebook is a really nice photo of the above clock, except taken at -- I think -- a higher shutter speed, so the clock in the foreground is a little darker and one can better see the focal point resting just above the Roman-numeral six: the white domed top of Sacre Coeur, which lines up perfectly with this clock at the Musee D'Orsay. Unable to adjust my camera in such a way -- not that I would have likely known how to, in the first place -- I had better luck just getting the silhouettes of these people looking out at the view.

Actually, the silhouettes weren't really intentional. They just wouldn't get out of the way, and I had other places I wanted to be, so I took the photo anyway.

Today seems to be a productive sort of day; I guess I might as well take advantage of that while I can. Things are pretty quiet in Paris; it's been cold, but is a little milder today, and I'm mostly contenting myself to find warm indoor-places and quiet tasks. Having finished the Pullman trilogy (the ending of Amber Spyglass seemed pretty silly, in some ways, but I'm glad to have read it all), I've moved on to territory a little closer to home: a collection of short stories entitled Stories of the Modern South. Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote, and all sorts of wonders besides; I doubt I'll get through all of them by the March 8th due date, but the joy of short story collections, I suppose, is that you don't actually have to read all the stories in the collection.

The next-trip is going to be short and free: an NYU-sponsored trip to Mont St-Michel over the weekend of March 4th. I'm exchanging travel plans with the London and Valencia correspondants and, although I don't think I'll be going to London this semester, I'm trying to negotiate a cheap way to get to Spain for a weekend. If only I knew of a man with a chicken-truck that I could hitchhike with, or some such classic mode of cheap-fare travel; turns out the price of a plane ticket from Paris to Valencia is a few more chickens' worth than I really want to spend.

As an aside -- maybe I'm getting this from my Southern short story collection, but in all seriousness, chicken metaphors are fantastic. Everyone in the world knows what you're talking about when you compare it to a chicken in some way. I'll have to put this into practice; however, it does already tend to attract notice when I drop "reckon" in conversation.

Anyway, a departure from the somber photo, I guess. Back to e-mail and other realities.

misty paris

2005-02-15T06:02:00.000-05:00

DSCN1314
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I'm not entirely satisfied with the way the photo above turned out; apart from being blurred, somehow the light exposure seems uneven. But since I had my camera on an automatic setting at the time, it's not really surprising, I guess. At any rate, it was a lovely scene; this was taken while Scott was visiting, from Trocadero (an excellent place for either taking pictures or just looking at the Eiffel Tower).

Not much news, I don't think, since the last entry. The weekend was pretty quiet; I went to a modern-art exhibit for my art history class, and wondered to myself if by the time said class is done, modern art won't make me sleepy. That was sort of my hope, at least, going into it; we haven't covered a lot of ground yet, though. Surrealism, if nothing else, might be fun.

Recent grocery-store discoveries include honey-flavored yogurt that comes in cool little pots, which I rinsed out and plan on bringing home with me; also, some sort of goat cheese called "chevre doux" that basically tastes like sweetened cream cheese; now I just need to track down some bagels! It's pretty good just spread on a baguette, too.

Anyway, with more than four hours until my first and only class of the day, I might head back home for a little while; that, or I'll hop by the American library and check out a book I've been meaning to read.

couche de soleil

2005-02-11T10:30:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

A quick update, mostly for the sake of photo-posting. This was taken in the Jardin Luxembourg, and the big tower in the background is the Tour Montparnasse, which offers fantastic views of the whole city from the 59th floor; I think it's the tallest, and probably least attractive, building in Paris.

A rainy Friday today; I don't have class, but came into school anyway for both internet use and to officially register for classes. It's not very cold here, at least, but has the same kind of somber atmosphere that February seems to take wherever I am.

prime seating

2005-02-09T07:04:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Making good on my word, a photo from Berlin! This is probably one of my favorite pictures from the trip, actually. I don't remember the name in German, but this is from the building where parliamentary sessions are held. There is a glass dome on top of the building, which looks like a decent modern-art sort of thing from the outside, but from the inside offers really nice views of the city and, looking below, of the parliament in session. Supposedly it's something kind of symbolic, that the people of Berlin can wander freely in and out of this building and literally watch legislation in action. A long spiral ramp winds around the inside of the dome, which is where I shot this picture, looking down into the parliamentary room.

the beast's castle!

2005-02-09T06:57:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

It might not be the Disney model I envisioned, but the NYU-sponsored trip to Senlis and Chateau de Raray (above) ended up being a good time nonetheless. This shot is actually taken from behind the chateau; the sun was better in that direction at the time, and the tour busses were parked out front, anyway. This is the place where Jean Cocteau filmed La Belle et la Bete.

Senlis itself is a cute little town, where we spent most of the time on a guided tour and then chilled out for a while (some of us, anyway) with hot chocolate in a cafe. I wish I remembered more from the tour, but when I tuned in at one point and the commentary was "this house, you'll notice, is yellow, unlike the others, which are unpainted (scandal!)", I half-convinced myself that I wasn't missing much. I'm not very good with group tours and holding attention, although a notable exception was the very good tour we had of Berlin.

That said, I have more photos to post from there! I'll get on that shortly.

the paris tour

2005-02-07T05:58:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I spent most of the weekend playing Paris-tourist with Scott, who was visiting for a couple of days. Fun times! I took around eighty photos, which is pretty ridiculous. The one posted above is from Saint-Chapelle, which is a great place to go on a really sunny day, since it's little more than an enclosure of stained glass.

Today is my first day of class; I'm not really looking forward to my grammar class, but I guess in the end it'll be a good thing to have done.

Later I'll have to post more pictures from Berlin, and at least one from the chateau we visited with the NYU day trip last Friday.

Disorganized thoughts, today, probably the result of a head cold. It's one of those days that I think will be broken down into a sequence of to-do lists.

snow on the wall

2005-02-03T09:54:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Of the hundred-plus photos taken in Berlin, I figured that one of the wall remains would probably be appropriate for a first-posting. Berlin is such a great city! I have a feeling it doesn't get much business from the tourism industry, which is odd considering that everything is so affordable; it's really a great place for student travelers to visit.

I meant to write out a long trip-summary, but I'm not sure that it's going to happen today. So I'll jot down a few thoughts that come to mind, in non-chronological order.

Not one of us on the trip spoke German, for one thing. We found that this wasn't much of a problem, since most of the people we asked spoke English. The phrasebook came in handy for things like menus, though. We found it interesting, however, that the deer-in-headlights expression which probably crossed our faces every time we were met with a long German statement didn't phase the speakers; they seemed to assume that we knew what was going on until we owned up and told them directly that we didn't speak the language. In Paris, it's quite the opposite; even in situations where I have a pretty good handle on what's going on, I have to work to convince people that I speak French well enough to do whatever I'm trying to do -- buy a sandwich, find a book, whatever. They tend to switch to English the moment I give the hint of hesitation in French. This might also have something to do with the fact that a lot more tourists come to Paris than Berlin; I might find a different attitude in other German or French cities.

Our hostel was great (Bax Pax!), and in the fun Kreuzberg district; many of the neighborhoods had a similar feel to East Village in New York. We didn't really do any shopping, but probably should have; everything is a lot less expensive there, even considering that there are big sales in Paris right now.

When we arrived, it was snowing, and the ground remained covered in snow for the first three days or so that we were there; it's hard for a place to look bad under snow, but I really enjoyed the whole look of the place, somehow, even though it doesn't have nearly the kind of polished aesthetic that Paris does. It rained one morning, and then we had a chance to see the city without snow, and eventually, with sunshine. Under all conditions, I really liked the look of the city. It's funny to think just how unappealing it sounds to be in Berlin in January, but I had a really good time.

I guess I'll cut the entry for now, and maybe write something more organized in a little while. If nothing else, there are more photos I can post!

heart of winter

2005-01-26T09:40:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Sacre Coeur! I can't believe it took me until second semester to visit this place. I'm here to say, however, that the scene in Amelie where the guy is racing up and down the steps could never actually happen; there are way too many people all over the place for that sort of running around. But it's nonetheless a cute area; it definitely has a much different feel to it than most other Parisian neighborhoods.

At the moment, I'm taking care of a few things before taking off early tomorrow morning for Berlin. I forget when I last updated this, but I went to the wax museum on Saturday, which is expensive to enter but worth it for the photos; there's a good one of me giving directions to Napoleon. I've seen a couple of movies, and generally have continued the past week's theme of hanging around. It's cold here, today, but at least sunny; this morning I noticed that a puddle on the ground had frozen over. I guess Berlin will probably be colder; I'm preparing to bring my warmest, bulkiest sweaters and socks.

At any rate, I guess I'll next update after I get back.

it's always time to buy cheese

2005-01-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

This fuzzy photo was actually taken last December; I'm still not sure exactly what was going on at the time. A telethon, maybe? I'm also not sure if I've already posted it or not. I should keep better track of that.

I had a good day of touring around in the medieval art museum yesterday; the place is best known for the "Lady and the Unicorn" tapestries, a collection that I actually really liked, even though I hadn't expected to. The museum is situated more or less on top of the remains of -- I believe -- a Roman bath. Or if not a bath, some other sort of Roman structure. Another thing I should pay more attention to; I was sort of immersed in just taking pictures of the place, and being distracted by the loud American woman who wandered around the entire place reading out loud from some detailed guidebook. I kept bumping into her and the two others she was with; I always wonder to myself if they just assume I'm some French kid and I don't know what they're saying. Not that I look French, as far as that goes.

There are a couple of photography expositions I'm hoping to see in the next few days, and then this time next week, I'll be taking off for Berlin! I'm going with a couple of other kids for five days -- the longest trip I'll have been on outside of Paris so far. We're excited about that; we've talked a little about possible day trips to take outside of Berlin, although I'd be just as happy to stay in the city the whole time.

Not much else to report from there; time to buy some cheese and chocolate milk, and maybe think about buying a book or two for the Paris University class I'm signed up for (Texte et Image, which comes highly recommended by the NYU librarian).

window to the world

2005-01-17T11:35:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Yesterday I went out, for the first time, to La Defense, the business district of Paris, best known for the Grande Arche pictured above. The place is already a surreal kind of sight, but going alone on a Sunday just intensifies the whole experience, since the place is dead quiet except for the sound of the escalators running. I was glad to have gone, though; I was on a random "sightseeing!" run and afterwards went to the Arc de Triomphe and climbed all 280-some stairs to the top.

On the theme of solitary activities, I just finished (and enjoyed!) Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux, who actually has written a whole slew of other travel narratives I should probably check out. I'm now on to a book that I picked up at Three Lives & Co. bookstore in New York, called Number Nine Dream by David Mitchell. It's pretty crazy so far; I'm less than halfway through it but I'm giving it a tentative recommendation.

Seems like I had somewhat more profound thoughts, but I was just out shopping (got pants, yay), an activity that tends to drain me of all energy. Especially during these crazy Parisian sales.

back in action

2005-01-14T11:28:00.000-05:00

DSCN1007
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Not a photo from Europe, for once, but instead from New York, where I spent about a week of my winter break. Even though I'm now back in Paris, I thought it would be appropriate to have at least one photo to mark the time spent back in the States.

So far I've accomplished a good deal of grocery shopping; I'm still fighting off jetlag symptoms, and I'm of absolutely no help to the kids zho have just arrived in Paris for the spring semester. A couple of them today were asking me questions about getting bank account stuff done, and I had no answers. I have no idea how I got a bank account in the first place. I think there was a lot of gesturing and throwing-around of traveler's checks.

It's great to be back here, though. It hasn't rained yet since I've been here, but I'm bracing for wet winter weather; I stocked up on instant soup at the store and, if I read the label right, instant mashed potatoes. If not, it's potato soup; either one would suit me just fine.

I found also that I have a much easier time navigating the stores here than I did at the supermarket at home; I think I only went to the store once while at home, but I remember circling around the store a few times before I figured out where to pick up shopping baskets (actually, I don't think I ever found it; I just saw an empty one lying around and grabbed it and ran). I guess that's just a result of being used to shopping for myself here, while I don't do much food shopping at home. It's not as though the store is easier to get around in a physical sense.

Anyway, I'm tempted to make up some mashed potatoes right now, but I'm going to hold out for an actual dinner hour. I ate dinner with the host parents last night (potato soup, interestingly enough, and carpaccio, which I've spelled incorrectly; some sort of thinly-sliced raw meat. So yes, I do eat red meat, and apparently, I don't even cook it). I'm trying my best to not be standoffish to the kids who just got here; it's hard to really meet people when they come in groups of ten, though. I'm going to try and put some effort into meeting the kids who are also living in the suburbs near me, though; I remember the disheartening conversation I had when I first found out where I was living:
NYU lady: so, your family has one son, and they're not far from the nine-metro
Me: ok, good, but where is it exactly?
NYU: well, it's not too far from here, near the sixteenth.. actually, I don't know the family myself, so I don't know exactly..
Me: ok.. so it's, like, a walkable distance from here?
NYU: well, yes, I think it would be (it's not)
Me: so it must be close to..
NYU: it's near the Bois du Boulogne, which is a lovely park; it's like living near the Central Park of Paris
Me: this is a weird zip code; why doesn't it start with 75?
NYU: well..
Me: am I actually living in Paris?
NYU: well, no.

Suburbs! I'm not really troubled by it, though; it's at least nice not to have a long metro ride in the mornings going to school.

Anyway, enough rambling for now; I'm not sure how often I'll be updating, since the NYU library will be closed for the next few days, and I'm reliant on host-family-internet instead.

a persistant "yay!"

2004-12-15T10:38:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

A mostly-celebratory post, since I finished my last final exam today, and somehow managed to get an a-plus on my Proust-analysis-paper. Hard to brag about that sort of thing in the NYU house, where people are still in the thick of test-taking and paper-writing, so it goes here instead, under my lamppost-picture.

I've given zero thought to packing yet; since I'm only home for three weeks, I imagine I won't need that much. And I've got fast-packing down to an art, anyway, thanks to all those crazy weekend-trips in November. Some laundry-time, however, will have to be taken into account.

I'm not sure if I'll update this again before going home, and I'm even less sure that I'll update it over the break; I guess it would be nice to conclude the semester with some profound thoughts, but the past two weeks' worth of work has pretty much cleared everything from my mind except for a persistant "yay!" now that it's done. I tend to be more introspective in deep-winter January, anyway. So with that, happy holidays to everyone, and happy new year; many of you I'll likely be seeing soon!

turn on the bright lights

2004-12-13T09:32:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

This photo seems almost out of place to me at this moment, having just spent an intense amount of time not looking at lights but, rather, pouring through books and writing about Senegalese poetry. But having printed out my sixteen pages of poetic-goodness, I guess now I can relax a little more. Almost done with classes, after all! It's definitely feeling like that last-week-of-the-semester, with everything sort of being pulled together at the last minute and not enough coffee in the world.

Anyway, I did get to take some photos of Christmas light displays on Thursday, and even though the photo above probably isn't the nicest one I took, the Galeries Lafayette display was the brightest and most impressive from the road. The window displays were also pretty crazy; more photos of those might follow.

How strange to think that I only have a week left. This time next week, I'll be sitting in a dentist's chair at home, probably disoriented from jetlag, and the hygenist will be asking me questions about Paris, and I'll be unsure exactly how I'm supposed to answer when I've got dental equipment in my mouth.

clearing clouds

2004-12-08T09:28:00.000-05:00

DSCN0443
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Ah, finals week. Fun for all. The flower above, from a store window somewhere in Paris, is representative of the zen-like attitude I'm trying to take in regard to the work yet to come. Not so sure I've got it down, but a picture of what's really kept me going so far -- meaning, a combination of obligation, sugar, and Spider Solitare -- wouldn't really be as pretty. I'm especially not sure how one captures an image of "academic obligation," as far as that goes.

Anyway, I'm feeling at least a little lighter today, having more or less finished with my art history class. It's easy to forget that I have three more classes yet to take care of.

I had trouble falling asleep Monday night, I might add, almost solely because I had just found out that my spring break over here is two weeks long! A good part of that night was spent pouring over a map and speculating that somewhere warm might be nice. A couple of travel plans for next semester are already in place, actually; it's looking like Cologne might be among my first trips, and then at some other point, Florence and hopefully Rome.

Wow, as soon as I typed the word "Rome," the sun broke through the clouds. I'll take that as a good sign, I guess.

Anyway, immersed as I am at the moment in all things academic, I'm off to the big-library to faire la recherche. Pain au chocolat on the way, I imagine.

decembre, fin du semestre

2004-12-02T07:14:00.000-05:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I think I had it in my head that it would be nice to have an entry on December first; something relating to how fast the semester has been passing, how there are Christmas decorations everywhere, et cetera. It's actually quite telling of just how fast the time really is passing that I'm writing my December-first entry on December 2. I'm glad that I'm staying here for the whole year; otherwise I'd be upset to be leaving so soon and to have left so many things undone.

Amsterdam was a good trip, by the way, until Friday night, when some combination of factors resulted in me getting the sickest I remember being in years. Saturday, which I'd planned to spend mostly atop a rented bike flying around the city, was spent instead haunting various cafes and drinking tea cautiously. So I'm up for another trip, one involving more bicycles and sightseeing.

I did, however, see the Anne Frank house, which I'm really glad to have visited, as well as the Van Gogh museum. It's kind of a pity that the museums in Amsterdam are so expensive -- unexpectedly so, really, since most other towns I've been in around Europe tend to have cheap if not free entry for most of their museums.

So after a couple days of recuperation, I'm feeling more or less like my normal self again, which is to say that I bought about two pounds of cheese at the grocery store yesterday and smurf-shaped gummies (I couldn't resist something so weird as that).

Among the things I'm bring back with me, actually, will be some of my favorite "pamplemousse rose" mentos, which I'm told are really only found in France (there are a lot of unexpectedly grapefruit-flavored things over here, now that I think about it). Scott can attest to their goodness.

Anyway, ayant fini my art history paper, I'm on to the next one, which involves Proust and, in all likeliness, as much vagueness as I can muster in six pages of French.

miles of typing

2004-11-30T07:08:00.000-05:00

DSCN0703
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Another picture from Strasbourg; this one is from the inside of the cathedral there, and shows some of the stained glass, sculptures, and a corner of the astrological clock.

I'm in the middle of writing a paper, and will probably be writing papers more or less continuously for about two weeks, so it's hard to say how updates will follow for the next while. I'll either neglect the site completely, or in a storm of procrastination I'll write an autobiography. I'll try, at least, to post a picture once in a while. And I did just come back from Amsterdam, so stories will follow from that as well at some point.

In the meantime, most of my attention is now going to be turned towards Van Gogh, and Gericault, and the perception of insanity in the nineteenth century, which at least is an interesting topic but one of those where it's also possible I'll start to go a little insane if I'm doing in-depth analysis of Van Gogh's psychosis much later tonight. Probably a good thing, in retrospect, that I decided against being a psychology major.

bretzels and alsace

2004-11-22T07:30:00.000-05:00

DSCN0684
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

It seems like this type-out-a-weekend-trip-summary-on-Sunday thing is becoming something of a regular occurrence. The train to Strasbourg was four hours long and seemed longer, probably because I've gotten so used to getting places in under two hours most of the time. I'll think of it, then, as training for my upcoming five-hour train ride to Amsterdam. The trick seems to be to bring along an engrossing book in one's native language; Proust may be highly acclaimed and certainly worth a read, but my brain seems to want mostly to shut off on train rides, and interpreting his French isn't something I'm very good at under such circumstances.

The school group, which consisted of fifty undergrad students and a small party of grad students who decided to come along, left from Paris early, just before eight on Friday morning. The countryside going east from Paris was nice to look at as we passed along; it's definitely very different from that of the south of France. Autumn is probably a good time of year to visit the region, although I guess I don't really have anything to compare it to; I just always like to see changing-leaf landscapes, and there were plenty of those on the way.

Anyway, we arrived in Strasbourg and took a bus into the city center, where we got lunch; both days for lunch, I ended up getting these great little things that I've already forgotten the name of, but they consist of rolls of bread made from pretzel ("bretzel") dough and then covered with cheese and pieces of bacon. I didn't have any quiche while there, favoring portability over tradition, but obviously it's pretty much the most authentic place in France where one can get a quiche Lorraine.

We had guided tours of the town, where we were shown around the cathedral (which has only one steeple because the architects realized a second would be too much weight for the foundation to support, or I think that's how it went). Inside the cathedral is also one of the two "astrological clocks" in Europe, whose workings were too complex for me to completely understand in translation. Basically, it works without any sort of battery or outside power supply, and it counts just about every aspect of time that humans have ever thought to keep track of: local time, time of sunset and sunrise, positions of planets out to Saturn (I think the outer planets weren't yet discovered when the clock was made), the current phase of the moon, and then there's something with stars that was completely beyond me. We watched it hit the quarter-hour, which triggered one of the little animated wooden parts to march across the front -- the "young adolescent" figure took his leave while the "grown adult" took his place (it's all to do with the progression of life -- for all the math involved with this clock, there's also a lot of figurative imagery realized in the wooden forms).

We walked along the canal for a while, and then dispersed for free time, which involved mostly a lot of wandering around and admiring everything non-Parisian. It's interesting how quirky some towns can be, and I think it has a lot to do with how everything is so centralized around Paris in France; everyone else sort of accepts their not-capital-city status and concentrates more on their own local issues.

Strasbourg is right on the German border, so a good deal of the street signs are in both French and German, and many signs for stores and such are outright German -- although I did hear that there's actually an Alsatian dialect similar to German. At any rate, it resulted in yet another linguistic adventure when a few of us decided to get some vin chaud on the road. Vin chaud (hot wine, which I'm sure I've mentioned before) is often served directly out of a big cauldron-esque pot that it's been cooked in; on the pot that we saw, it was labeled in both French and German. For fun, we decided to try asking for it in German. After figuring out among ourselves the words for "one" and "please", I worked up my courage and mumbled something that, I hoped, approximated "one hot wine, please". The woman seemed to understand it right away, because she went right over to where the pot was and was about to ladle it out, when she paused, and the following scene ensued:
Woman (in French): are you eighteen?
Me: [looking confused, because I wasn't expecting to be asked for my age]
And before I had a chance to answer, another woman, who was working in the same store behind a counter, interjected:
Second woman (in French): no no, she's German. (meaning, I hadn't understood the French question)
First woman: [nods, and then starts speaking in German]
Me (in French): I'm twenty...
First woman: [looks confused, then says something else in German]
Second woman (in French, to first woman): isn't she German?
Me: um..
First woman (in English): are you eighteen? You have to be eighteen.
Me (in French): yes, I'm twenty.
First woman (in Franglais): what size would you like? Une grande, ou small?
Me (in English): um. Small. Thanks.

What confusion. But I got some excellent vin chaud out of it, and apparently passed myself off as German for about five seconds. I'm still not sure what the question about being eighteen was about, because to my knowledge, vin chaud isn't any more alcoholic than normal wine, and I think the drinking age in France is sixteen anyway.

We didn't stay the night in Strasbourg, but it's definitely a place I'd enjoy going back to. We took a bus ride to Obernai, where we checked into our hotel and then had a big group dinner at the hotel restaurant (which involved a lot of sausage and sauerkraut). I've never really liked sauerkraut, but I was hoping that maybe if I had it closer to its actual region of invention, I'd change my mind. This didn't really turn out to be the case, unfortunately. Oh, well.

We spent most of Saturday morning exploring Obernai, which is a really cute little town. I feel like we were possibly the only tourists there, too, which was kind of nice. After lunch, we all met up again and rode through the countryside on the bus for a couple of hours; I think we were actually following a designated "Wines of Alsace" route. The tour guide on the bus was full of facts, and kept quizzing us on the most random things (example of an actual question: "Why would anyone fight over Pennsylvania? No one knows this? Why, for coal, of course!"). I'm not sure anyone would have really guessed that even if the question hadn't been wildly out of context. The countryside was really lovely, though; we were driving along the Vosges mountain range, which I hadn't even known about beforehand, and got a few very distant glimpses of the Alps. There were also some chateaus scattered around; unfortunately we weren't able to actually get very close to any of them.

Our last main event was a wine tasting, which took place in one of the small wine-centered towns we passed through. I don't think any of us really knew what we were expected to do in terms of wine-tasting-etiquette; we had the vague idea that drinking all the wine served wasn't really the objective, but ended up not actually spitting out the wine, in favor of taking one or two sips and then stopping there. We tasted three wines: a Pinot Gris (I think), a Riesling, and a Gewurztraminer (which was my favorite, but mostly because I have such fun saying the name). We had the opportunity to buy bottles afterwards, but we were then alerted to the fact that we were actually short on time to get to our train, so most of us passed.

We got back to Paris around eleven on Saturday night, after the aforementioned long train ride, and I just came directly home, happy to sleep after a lot of touring around. It's funny how sleepy most people get after traveling for a long period of time, despite the fact that often they were sitting the entire time. It's almost as though our bodies are able to detect the shift in global positioning despite our best efforts to conserve energy.

Sunday in Paris, the weather is damp and chilly, and I'm spending the day inside keeping warm and reorganizing myself for the coming week.

smoky progress

2004-11-16T11:36:00.000-05:00

DSCN0359
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Quick mid-week update, with the above Louvre photo being appropriate enough, as I'll be spending a lot of time tonight working on a paper for my art history class. I decided not to post the photo that I took of the clothesline I constructed, even though I'm still proud of it and my clothes are all dry!

News this week is minimal from over here, but this weekend I'm going on a school trip to Strasbourg, which I'm looking forward to! I had the dream of possibly hopping over the German border and thus visiting another country while there, but with only a few hours of free time, it might be best to just see Strasbourg (which I have yet to hear a bad thing about, anyway).

In the meantime there's going to be some intense analysis to be wrestled out of foggy impressionist paintings (Turner, Monet, and Whistler). London, apparently, isn't nearly as foggy as it was back when these impressionists were painting it, because the fog then was the direct result of coal burning in the newly-industrialized city. Not so much coal-burning anymore, I guess.

grammatically-correct in lyon

2004-11-15T07:25:00.000-05:00

DSCN0651
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I set my alarm for about eight this morning, with the noble goal of getting some laundry done and going to the store before it closed at noon, but that ended up not working out as planned. Typical, really; I don't know how I expected myself to actually adhere to the plan of waking up before ten if not absolutely necessary. At least I'm getting some laundry done now; I put a load in about ten minutes ago, and in about an hour I'll be able to go back down and take it out; it's going to take forever to line-dry, though, with the windows shut. French families must have long ago found some simple solution to that -- I mean, how does one dry clothes in the winter? -- but whatever it might be, it's eluding me; I end up doing acrobatics around pieces of damp clothing hanging on whatever might serve as a hook or hanger in my little room for the next two or three days.

Anyway, on to more interesting things -- such as, naturally, visiting other cities! I got back from my two-day Lyon visit last night, which is a very manageable 2-hour TGV ride from Paris; I would settle in for a nap on the train and then be surprised upon realizing there were only fifteen minutes left in the trip. I guess I'm still used to Amtrak and the three and a half-hour journey from New York to DC (although, from what I could tell, the arrival times were more theoretical than anything; here, the trains really seem to stick to their schedules. The conductor for my return trip from Lyon, for example, apologized over the loudspeaker when the train was five minutes late -- while a delay like that is sort of a given for Amtrak).

I met up with Molly at the Lyon train station Friday morning, and set off to walk around the city after dropping some things off at her (very nice!) room/apartment/homestay. We wandered through the "Parc de la tete d'or", which is sort of a Central-Park equivalent (although, as is also the case in Paris, the big city parks are generally on the outskirts of the city, and not centralized at all). It was a nice place, though, and we inadvertently stumbled into a World War I memorial, which I guess was appropriate enough, as it was just after Veteran's Day in the states. Part of the memorial looked a little too much like a funeral pyre, however, and we kept a distance from it.

We warmed ourselves up with some hot chocolate -- Lyon was much colder than I expected it to be. I'd been trying to tough out the impending cold and, as of yet, I still haven't broken out the winter jacket, but it would have been smarter to have brought it rather than my non-insulating corduroy jacket. Notes for next time, I guess. Anyway, we then hopped on the funicular (!) to go see the church (cathedral? what is the distinction there?) perched atop a hill overlooking Lyon. I was mostly excited about riding on a funicular, which may not be anything more complicated than a train being pulled up a hill (if it had actually been suspended in the air, I would have been thrilled), but I'm jealous anyway of all Lyon residents who get to use it in their everyday vocabulary, because it's probably up there next to "submarine" and "trolley" in regard to words related to transportation that are as fun to say as they are to use.

The church was pretty impressively decorated on the inside; I didn't catch how old it was, but it was apparently in an age that had no fear of gilded frescoes. My pictures are blurry, as usual, but maybe I'll post one of the inside anyway; all the gold tones give the place an interesting feel, and there are a lot of detailed carvings and paintings as well. There was also, on the outside of the church, a really nice view of the whole city; my picture didn't come out all that well, unfortunately, because it was cloudy at the time, but it's definitely a place to visit all the same.

There may not be much mention of going to Lyon for the Mexican food, but such is what we did Friday night, with a bunch of Molly's friends, and it was really good! I hadn't had Mexican food since leaving the states. We're still not sure why the rice was pink, but it tasted good just the same.

Alright, a quick rant on Microsoft Word's grammar check: in one of the sentences above, it wants to take "my picture didn't come out all that well" and replace "all that" with "that entire". I'm not claiming to have perfect grammar by anyone's standards, but I'm fairly sure that even if "all that" makes some slight error that I'm unaware of (I mean, I'm just writing with more or less the voice I speak with), "that entire" makes no sense at all. I tapped on the "explain" button, and it says something about using "entire" when referring to a singular object in its entirety. Alright, so one could say, "didn't come out entirely well", right? I'd take that. Anyway, enough of that digression.

Saturday morning in Lyon, we woke up late and moved slowly towards a travel bookstore that Molly recommended, and which is now on my list of top-favorite-bookstores-du-monde. This is the list, so far, for anyone interested (in no particular order):
City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco
Imagination Station, Arlington
St. Mark's Bookshop, New York
Olsson's, Alexandria
Shakespeare & Company, Paris
Foyle's, London
And the latest addition: Raconte-moi la terre, in Lyon.

(There's another NewYork store that I can't remember the name of, but it's somewhere in West Village on or near 10th street, and it has either "tree" or "three" in the name. Thanks to the staff recommendations, I picked up The God of Small Things, knowing absolutely nothing about it beforehand).

Raconte-moi la terre is actually the only French-language store featured on the above list, although they did have English books scattered throughout the store. The store is almost entirely dedicated to travel guidebooks, with every corner of the world represented; there was also travel literature here and there, with an impressive shelf of African literature (I spent about twenty minutes there agonizing over yet another poetry anthology; I ended up leaving it). I flipped through a short guide to Amsterdam, while Molly looked over trans-Siberian railroad and Russia literature, and I think we both ended up agreeing that Istanbul might be a wild visit, and that we'd likewise never get there if we spent all our money on guidebooks. So we took the only practical step, and went upstairs to the in-house cafe for some coffee.

Upstairs there were also several computers with internet access, although Molly reports that it's an expensive place for internet use -- something like eight euros an hour. The coffee, at least, seemed reasonably priced, and with couches scattered all over the expansive second floor, it's a really nice place to hang out.

After that, we went to the Fine Arts Museum, which was a worthwhile visit, and nearly as entertaining as some of the artwork was the museum's crazy organizational system, which at first seemed nonexistent. There was one room in particular where we started on one end with a Picasso work, passed by Renoir and Berthe Morisot, followed by some random neoclassical pieces, and then finished at the other end of the room with pieces from the Middle Ages. I'm fairly sure, after looking back on it, that it was actually organized by the order in which the pieces were received by the museum -- which is definitely not a system I've ever seen used before. It's not a large place, though; it's possible that in smaller museums, where the permanent collection isn't overwhelming, they'll mix things up a bit.

We went in and out of a few stores, and ended up in the late afternoon at a tea house named "Orienthé", which may actually be the first French pun I've ever understood right away. The place takes tea very seriously; the entire menu is dedicated to explaining the various blends available (I was completely lost, knowing nothing about tea other than that some is green and some is not), and I think anything else you just kind of have to ask for -- like food, for example (I saw a few pastry-looking things in some corner, which might be about all they offer). The place is decorated really nicely, though, with what seemed to be an Indian kind of theme; it's very dimly-lit, with lots of couches and low tables, and nice music, and board games stashed away in a back corner -- the idea clearly being to stay there for any indeterminate amount of time and hang out. I even took a picture of the inside, being so impressed with it.

My train back to Paris left at eight that evening; I made minimal progress with my assigned reading and got back to my room around eleven.

Since then, and in fact, since starting this drawn-out entry, I've solved to some degree the problem of drying my laundry. I think the idea of creating a clothesline must have occurred to me at least once, but it wasn't until I actually dug up some string today that I was able to make that a reality. Hooray for the clothesline! I'm afraid to put heavier items like my pants on it, for fear of tearing down whatever it's tied to, but even if just for shirts and socks, it's saving me a lot of room. However, it does make it kind of difficult to open the wardrobe. Maybe the clothes will even dry a little faster, since they're more spread out.

Anyway, there's still that reading I need to be getting to, I suppose. Sunday, and all that; this week I've laid out for myself a strict (well, relatively) schedule for getting schoolwork done, which will likely include another visit to the huge-and-fantastic public library that I went to a few weeks ago. Tomorrow I'll get this entry posted, maybe with a good photo or two as well, and then may not update til the end of the week, since schoolwork doesn't really interest anyone. I'm not sure that my grammatical asides and bookstore recommendations are all that interesting either, as far as that goes, but they're certainly easier to rant about, from my perspective.

daily dose..

2004-11-09T07:26:00.000-05:00

DSCN0531
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

It may not be a very atmospheric photo posted above, but this is from one of the most interesting exhibits I saw in the London museums I visited last weekend. If I didn't mention it in the last entry -- a good number of museums in London are free to enter, including the British Museum (that fabulous monument to imperial might, whose official policy amounts to something along the lines of, "We don't care if we stole it from your country, we're keeping it forever").

However, it was here in the British Museum that I saw the "Cradle to Grave" exhibition, which is some kind of collaboration between, I believe, a pharmacist and a textile designer (which leads one to wonder, how on earth did those two even meet in the first place?). The piece dominates the room that it's in; it's basically a long piece of sheer fabric into which thousands of pills are sewn, and it's meant to display the average number of prescription pills that the average British person is prescribed in a lifetime. Two people are profiled, and it's an odd sort of pharmacological biography, where sections of pills will be labeled with descriptions of what was happening at the time, which ranges from "hay fever treatment" to "chemotherapy". The sheer number of these pills, though, is what really makes the piece so striking. Hopefully this link will work; it should go to the exhibit's description on the British Museum's website, which is surely more thought-out than whatever I might offer here.

Here in Paris, it's a short week of school, thanks to a holiday on Thursday. I'm taking a short overnight trip to Lyon to visit Molly, which I'm really looking forward to; it's looking likely that I won't have spent a single weekend entirely in Paris by the time November's out. Today, however, is dedicated to matters academic; after lunch I'll start to crack down on studying for my art history midterm tomorrow. A lot of inspirational M&Ms will probably be involved.

one old town

2004-11-08T09:47:00.000-05:00

DSCN0542
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

As I have class in not very much time, this is just going to be a quick photo-posting to follow up on the London trip; above is Trafalgar Square, and the distant, vaguely circular light in the background near the center of the photo is the face of Big Ben (now I can't actually remember -- is Big Ben the clock or the bell? at any rate, the clock is what's actually visible here).

November 5th, by the way, is an excellent time to visit London, and anyone who has the ability to do so next year definitely should, because it will (I think) be the 400th anniversary of the annual unofficial "Guy Fawkes' Day", a fun holiday involving a lot of fireworks. Scott was telling me that the origin of this holiday comes from an event in 1605, when a plot to burn down the Parliament was thwarted. So to celebrate the fact that there wasn't a fire in 1605, the past 400 November 5ths have been spent setting off even more of them in celebration. What a fantastic holiday.

I had a good weekend, at any rate, hanging out with Scott and seeing a few things around London. I saw the British Museum, which completely blew me away with the collection from the Parthenon (honestly, I thought all that stuff was still in Greece!), and I got to see the Rosetta stone, which must never get a moment's rest from the tourists flocking around it to take pictures (of which, naturally, I was one, but at least I hold true to my no-flash policy).

Foyle's Bookstore now has my official stamp of approval; I was particularly impressed by all the travel books the have on the ground level. Maybe guidebooks move especially quickly in London, for some reason; also, there was a large travel writing section, which is a hard genre to come by in a lot of stores. I skimmed through Dark Star Safari, which I'll have to make a note of to seek out someday, maybe at the Arlington library. I've already forgotten who it's by. Anyone already read it?

Of the 70 or so photos I took over the weekend, 20 are of dinosaurs, thanks to our visit to the Natural History Museum. I don't think I actually uploaded any to the Flickr account, unfortunately.

Anyway, this is somewhat disjointed, and hopefully I'll have the chance to more fully write about the London trip, but for now I do actually need to go to class (ah, that).

en plus...

2004-11-04T07:33:00.000-05:00

Quick note; there's a new link to the right! Yay new-link-to-the-right! Rachael is an American University (I'm fairly sure) student studying here at the NYU house for the semester.

And another random thought, which I actually had on election night/morning, but will post anyway: isn't it weird how the phrase "latest computer technology" is a cliche?

my brain on politics

2004-11-04T07:29:00.000-05:00

DSCN0402
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Ah, my brain is not on happy terms this week, thanks to staying up all night to watch election coverage at the NYU center and then being consequently both disappointed and sleep-deprived.

I doubt that the grass-maze-thing above is terribly old, but supposedly the historical purpose of labyrinths was as a sort of mind-clearing device (that is, either mazes that can be physically walked through, or on a smaller scale like those seen in Celtic knots). This one here is probably just meant to be pretty (it's in Chartres, by the way, down the hill from the cathedral), but I have a feeling clarity of thought might be something a lot of people are seeking this week.

As for me, I'm going to London. I have a mew-zem visit later today to see some Monet paintings (yay!), I might go out to dinner later on, and then tomorrow morning will see me at the train station hopping on the Eurostar, London-bound (where the pound is apparently about twice the worth of the dollar at this point; exchanging my euros will be a sad moment). Anyway, so I'll be there from Friday to Sunday, and it's possible I could update from Scott's computer while there, but more likely that I'll get to it sometime next week instead.

Oh, while I'm here, I might as well make a movie recommendation: Motorcycle Diaries is an excellent film, and I think it might have been released a while ago in the States; the movie is in Spanish, but subtitled appropriately depending on where you see it. It was something of a linguistic adventure watching a South American movie in Spanish with French subtitles, but I'm happy to say that I actually understood pretty much the whole thing; anything I missed in French probably falls under the category of "random familiar terms" which can often be picked up contextually anyway. The soundtrack is really nice, too.

Anyway, with that, and a labyrinth to ponder, I'm off.

cathedral! big!

2004-11-02T07:25:00.000-05:00

DSCN0408
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I mean, I can only be so eloquent. Chartres entry follows below.

weekend trip; and everyone please vote

2004-11-02T07:22:00.000-05:00

DSCN0436
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I considered titling this entry "alone in Chartres" and then seeing if anyone would be able to guess the reference; I guess I can put the challenge out there anyway. It refers to both a song and a movie. Scott, you should know at least one of them.

I can't believe it's already November; as I'm writing this, it's the first, but I'm on my laptop at home and won't be able to actually post until at least tomorrow. Election Day, that is. What craziness. It's kind of disheartening, though, to have voted in a state where my vote seems to never make any difference; Virginia will probably belong to the Republicans for a long time. It would be much more exciting to live in a swing state.

The Chartres trip was a very last-minute and very cheap trip that I took on my own; I kind of wanted to spend the day by myself, and somehow staying in Paris and hanging out there didn't cut it. I thought I was going to go to Givergny initially, but was somehow dissuaded by the fact that the train doesn't go directly there -- there's a train, but then a bus ride that follows. I really prefer to visit cities and towns with direct train access; makes the day much simpler. Anyway, I showed up at the train station at about nine Saturday morning and decided that although Chartres was top on the list, the destination was going to be completely determined by the price of the train ticket. Fortunately, it was only about twenty euros round-trip -- not bad at all, and I got some kind of discount at the last minute for being under 26. The train ride was about an hour long; once one arrives in Chartres, the tallest structure by far is the 12th-century cathedral, so it's not terribly hard to figure out which direction to head in after getting off the train.

My first order of business, however, was getting some caffeine into my system, and I headed off into what seemed to be more or less the center of the town (which, interestingly, doesn't really center itself around the cathedral). The fresh food market was set up in one big area of the town, so a good deal of the crowd around there was made up of Chartres residents (unless the cathedral tourists really wanted some fresh fish or cheese, that is). I parked myself outside a cafe and drank a coffee while watching a few costumed kids go in and out of the candy store at the opposite corner; I still haven't gotten a good idea for how Halloween is approached here, as it seems to be sort of an afterthought that appears at random intervals -- a carved pumpkin filled with flowers, a painted face, a paper ghost tied to a lamppost.

What an odd holiday, really. Leaves, pumpkins, cider, ghosts, witchcraft, and a lot of sugar, and somehow all that strangeness is supposed to be mostly for children. Well, anyway.

The only thing I knew I wanted to see in Chartres was, of course, the cathedral, so that was the first stop I made after the coffee boost. I was glad to have gotten there in the morning, as the place wasn't as full of people as it seemed to be later on in the day. However, while my digital pictures of the stained glass windows are pretty in their own vague, blurry manner, it's best to bring a tripod for cathedral-interior pictures, especially those built before Gothic design really came into its own (before that, as for Chartres, there wasn't a whole lot of concern for getting natural light into the place). The Chartres windows are lovely, though, and the original ones are primarily a dark shade of blue with insanely involved designs. For anyone really interested in the religious stories behind them, it's best to check out the Chartres Stained Glass Centre, which isn't far from the cathedral; they have replications of some of the windows -- and failing that, detailed prints -- which one can approach from a much closer distance than possible in the cathedral, and I think the stories might even be typed up somewhere to the side.

The cathedral also boasts a labyrinth design in the floor, a big circular design that was also obscured by rows of chairs when I was there. I was surprised, actually, that it was covered up; I guess they might have been preparing for a Toussaint crowd. Do people go to mass on Toussaint? I'm not really sure how that holiday works.

After some time exploring the cathedral interior, I walked around the outside, and then headed down some random road to explore other areas of the town; it's a fairly hilly place and quite picturesque away from the town centre (which boasts many big-name stores and in itself is an interesting area as well). There's a museum of natural history tucked away on some random road, which unfortunately was closed at the time, or I might have checked it out. I mean, you don't hear about many people going to cathedral towns for the natural history museums.

Eventually I worked my way over to the stained glass exhibition centre that I mentioned earlier; I'm calling it by about five different names because, frankly, I can't remember the actual name. It was in French and had both Chartres and glass in the title. It's housed in some crazy old building that looks like it might have once been a church but wasn't really finished off; the top floor is the permanent exhibit, which mostly explains the history and design behind the stained glass in the cathedral of Chartres, and then there was a modern stained glass display on the lower level.

I think I actually got more entertainment from the modern art exhibit; aside from several pieces of glass art that were displayed atop these strange cube structures, there was, behind a curtain, a video exhibit that involved laying down on a slab of wood and putting on special glasses to watch the three-dimensional video that, by way of a few mirrors, was being projected onto the ceiling.

I'm not sure if it affects my writing style or not, but I'll make the announcement anyway that the "a" key has, for the second time, just popped off the keyboard. The last time this happened, I was in the middle of writing about twenty-five pages' worth of final papers, so it was really not a good situation. This time, it's just annoying; obviously I can still use it, but it's a much more delicate operation with no actual key to hit. This all started when a book fell onto my keyboard last semester. I haven't had a caps lock key since then. Poor laptop. College has been hard on it.

Anyway, I'm going to try to remedy the situation, and tomorrow I'll get this entry posted up with (hopefully) some pictures.

Edit: the photo above is from the modern-art display in the stained glass centre I was at in Chartres; I'll add a second of the actual cathedral for posterity's sake, though.

and then a pretty one

2004-10-31T11:40:00.000-05:00

DSCN0319.JPG
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I can't remember exactly the name of this park, but it's more or less in the middle of Brussels, and the building in the background (if I've got this right) is the Belgian Parliament building.

The long Brussels-summary entry follows below the Atomium picture.

supplementary atomium photo

2004-10-31T11:37:00.000-05:00

DSCN0335.JPG
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

This thing is huge, and this fact makes it even weirder to see in person. Giant atom-thing. Crazy..

just call me zeppo

2004-10-31T07:23:00.000-05:00

The photo-sharing website seems to be not working today, so now that I'm finally semi-determined to write up something relating to the Brussels trip of last weekend, it'll have to be without illustration for now. Hopefully I can add some in later.

Exactly one week ago from right-now, I think I was in the Comic Book Museum in Brussels. I was also very tired. Probably because of this, I didn't find the museum all that interesting. Anyway, I guess it'll make more sense to go in chronological order, starting with when we left Paris on Thursday afternoon.

Actually, Thursday mostly consisted of wandering around aimlessly. I think it was on the train ride up there (which, I might add, is ridiculously short from Paris) that we realized we knew absolutely nothing about the city we were about to spend four days in; we had no map, no guide of any kind, and a vague idea that the waffles would be good (which they were, but that didn't happen until Friday).

So we spent most of Thursday evening kind of trying to wander towards a more exciting area of town, and we weren't really successful; we did, however, find it remarkable just how quiet the city is, and we weren't even very far from the city centre. We got dinner somewhere in the middle of a quiet Turkish neighborhood, tried to figure out the metro, and then decided we were tired and went to bed.

The next day, there was some kind of metro workers' strike, so we were reliant mostly on getting around by foot; and as it turned out, this wasn't hard to do, and for the rest of the weekend we pretty much walked everywhere, with the exception of Saturday morning when we took a bus tour. The metro stations, however, play music, which we all thought was pretty cool.

We met up with the big group of NYU kids at the Grand Place, which is pretty much the middle of all things touristy in Brussels; they were on the school-sponsored trip (my small party of rebels was holding out for the trip to Strasbourg in November) and only had a couple hours of free time in Brussels, so we didn't really get to do much with them other than help them find their bus.

We got down to the business then of filling ourselves up on waffles (which are sold on the streets in much the same fashion as crepes are sold in Paris), and there's a fabulous picture of me on someone's computer where I'm eating said waffle and absolutely covered in powdered sugar; no wonder people make fun of tourists, as we can be such spectacles. And then, in a move that I thought we were all going to regret later (but didn't, as it turned out), we topped off the waffles with beer from a nearby cafe/pub/place (I have no idea what distinguishes one from the other).

There's this one little intersection of tiny streets just to the side of Grand Place, which is absolutely packed with restaurants, and it's kind of an adventure just to walk down this road, because the waiters tend to accost people as they walk by the restaurant with the menu and offers like "free drinks with the meal, good dinner deal, comes with salad," etc. Those waiters probably know how to say that in about twenty different languages; I think they usually spoke either French or English to us, much as we might have tried to pass ourselves off as Flemish-speaking (a fun language, actually; I wouldn't mind actually learning it someday).

Saturday involved a fair bit of touring around; I should add, though, that we did a lot of walking around, not so much for getting from one point to another but just kind of to explore (or walk off the waffles and beer). From the little bit I've seen, European cities are quite good for that; if you do the same thing in Arlington, you'd probably either find yourself stuck next to a highway or at a Starbucks, or just lost in some residential neighborhood which wouldn't mean anything to someone who hadn't lived there (I mean, there's really no art involved in suburban design, just practicality; a tree-lined street might be pretty but it doesn't mean anything, not like when you walk into a wall in Brussels and then realize the crumbly old thing is the remnant of the original city wall).

Anyway, in lieu of walking an extra ten miles to see the periphery of the city, we opted for a bus tour, which was a good idea, even if I think we were all too self-conscious to take pictures out of the bus windows (at least, I was). We got out at the Atomium, which I will post a picture of at some point, because it really defies much explanation; tour guides just kind of shrug and mumble something about the World's Fair of 1948 or maybe 50-something. We made up a three-part harmony while waiting for the next bus to come and were snorted at by a swan, which is about the best we could make of the situation seeing as the actual Atomium was closed to the public until 2006.

Comic book museum followed, which provided for some good staged pictures but our excitement was somewht muted by the fact that all three of us were suddenly inexplicably so tired. We found a place to get some coffee afterwards, and then promptly went to counteract the caffiene boost with another round of Belgian beer; found somewhat by an accident of mistranslation a really good little pub, which we revisited on Sunday evening just before we left for Paris.

The adventure of Saturday night was finding, by means of an obscure University of Rochester t-shirt that I only recognized because of Sara, three U of R guys who happened to be visiting Brussels from their study-abroad site in London. And of course, they knew Sara. Weird. After roughly 48 hours of being with NYU kids and pretending to be Zeppo Marx/"Svetlana"/Fraulein Gallerie or any of our other made-up personalities, it was kind of strange to have a conversation about the concrete world. I think that was one of those moments when I realized I had definitely picked the right college.

Sunday, we took at a slower pace; we spent a long time sitting outside of a cafe and enjoying the good weather, and then toured around inside the Museum of Musical instruments (which is a fun place to visit!).

Oh, and apparently I can't pronounce the word "museum" correctly. It's supposed to have three syllables? I say "mew-sem", and when I try to stretch it out into three syllables, it comes out with a ridiculous pseudo-southern-accented "mew-zay-am". In Paris, at least, I can get by with saying it in French, and no one thinks anything of it.

Anyway, I think this entry is now a sufficiant amount of non-illustrated text; I'll work on getting a picture or two posted to supplement the summary.

Also, I've even taken another trip since I got back from Brussels; just yesterday I took a cheap day-trip toute seule to Chartres, and there are lot of corresponding pictures for that one as well.

In the meantime, I guess happy halloween to all at home; I think I'm going to see a movie.

the not-happening brussels summary

2004-10-27T08:32:00.000-04:00

DSCN0315.JPG
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

The Brussels update has been a long time in coming, and to be perfectly honest, I'm fairly certain I can't do the city much justice with just a blog entry. Ponder the above photo, then, and I'll be working on getting something comprehensive typed up. It's all well and good to take a weekend and travel, but then getting back into the swing of schoolwork seems to be preventing me from sitting down to think about the past weekend.

rain, library time, and some travel

2004-10-18T07:19:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

The result of a quiet, rainy week, I guess, is that this blog gets neglected. I don't even really have any good pictures to share, but give that another week and maybe I'll start to have an interesting life again. Meaning, interesting to people other than me (for my part, I tend to stay pretty involved in it no matter what). The photo above was taken on Nuit Blanche, but I don't think it had anything to do with the actual festival; I'm pretty sure it's just regularly set up on the outside of a church I passed by.

I'm actually writing this on Sunday afternoon, in my room, and I plan to actually post it online sometime Monday; this is the result of having put off writing anything for nearly a week. Today, in typical form, will probably be quiet; I have a good chunk left of La Princesse de Cleves to read for tomorrow, and it's probably about time to do some laundry while I'm at it. The host family, except for the dad (who is off in la campagne probably taking fire at more ducks), is puttering around the house; the son recently hurt his knee somehow at school and is consequently limping around the house under the concerned eye of his mom.

Molly of Arlington fame was up in Paris for the weekend; she's studying for the year down in Lyon. We were hanging out in this one cafe and had been grouped together with three guys we didn't know at the same table (Europeans know how to use their space effectively, especially in small cafes). The only amusement this brought us, though, was when the rose vendor came along. This was funny mostly because there was absolutely no question involved in the sell -- no "would you like a rose?" or anything like that. The selling strategy seemed to be more along the lines of, "Here are your roses," to me and Molly, and then to the guys, "Now you pay for them." As an aside, there are much better ways to be romantic in Paris than to buy roses from this guy, considering that they're five euros each! Anyway, we finally were successful with getting the guy to take the roses back.

Saturday had a couple of good Paris-excursions on my part; first I went up to this enormous flea market in the northern edge of the city, which I'm glad I saw; I ended up buying a scarf (at last!) and then a skirt and sweater from another vendor, which I inadvertently bargained down by five euros (I had no idea whether bargaining was expected or not; when he said the combination was going to be thirty-five euros, I said honestly that I wasn't sure I had more than twenty, and he said thirty would be enough in that case. I feel like I probably could have gotten him to offer it for less than even that, but the novelty of actually having had the price lowered completely put my guard down, and I paid it).

After the shopping excursion, I headed off to the big public library at Centre Pompidou to do some research for class, which involved waiting outside in line for nearly an hour just to get into the place. Apparently the open-stack library is a happening place on the weekends; but I did get some reading done in the line, so nothing really lost there. I think I might make a policy of trying to get my library work done during the week, though, when there's not so much of a wait.

There's a good week-long gap in this whole narrative, but honestly the week was quiet; it's the first week that it's been cold and rainy here, and I think it has put everyone in a somewhat more somber mood. I have, however, been planning out travel for the next few weeks, and my first excursion is going to be next weekend, when I take off for Brussels! I'm pretty excited about that; I'm going with a couple of other NYU kids, and we have yet to figure out exactly where we want to go in the city, but I hear there's a comic book museum, and Molly in turn recommended the museum of musical instruments. Plus... frites, and waffles! It might rain, but despite that, it sounds like it's hard to do Brussels wrong.

I think I'm staying in Paris the weekend of Toussaint, which is a French holiday (so naturally a lot of people are traveling that weekend). I'll be interested to see how the Parisians do Halloween (which carries the same name as in English -- though I have yet to hear how it's pronounced in French). Costumes for kids are on sale here and there, but I haven't noticed any more candy than usual, and I have a feeling that it's geared mostly towards kids (no Halloween Parade madness as in New York).

After that, I think I'm making the short (but expensive) trek over to London to bother Scott. London is an expensive city to get to and to tour around in, so it's unlikely I'll go there more than twice this entire school year, even though I'll know at least four people living there in the spring.

Anyway, I'll hopefully update again before leaving for Brussels, even though it's kind of looking like it might be a busy week in terms of boring stuff like getting schoolwork done, and laundry. Stay tuned..

petit regression

2004-10-06T12:27:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I took this photo a while ago from the window of my room; some unusually low clouds are being caught in the rotating searchlight of the Eiffel Tower. Can't remember if I've posted it yet or not.

I just got back from the three o'clock screening of La Belle et la Bete, the 1940-something Jean Cocteau film (Beauty and the Beast, black & white and wonderfully surreal). The screening was actually intended for children, and even though there were definitely a few other single adults there like me, the majority of the audience was under the age of eight.

And despite the extra noise created by the fidgeting audience, I actually was happy to have stumbled into the kids' screening; the little girl next to me kept asking her mom for plot summaries, which were equally helpful for me, since even though I know the story perfectly well it was kind of nice (and very cute) to have a running commentary explaining the basics (common questions: "is he mean? is that Belle? where is Belle? where are they going now?"). Then there was the baby who got loose about three-quarters through, ran down the side aisle near where I was sitting, and then spontaneously started to dance. Hey, why not.

Anyway, after the fairy-tale diversion, it's about time to think about the more concrete issue of what's for dinner. Not much homework, tonight -- maybe I'll take the opportunity to walk around Boulogne a little more.

fontainebleau and old england

2004-10-04T12:56:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

The Sunday Fontainebleau excursion almost didn't happen when I woke up at 11:30 that morning and desperately wished I'd had more than two hours of sleep (but when all of Paris is turned into a party, what else is there to do -- see the Nuit Blanche entry if you have no idea what's going on). But what makes the better story, anyway: I was tired, so I stayed home and slept, or, I had grilled cheese and Fanta next to a peacock.

I mean, that peacock thing was only about twenty minutes of the whole day, but that just popped into my head. Kind of like this morning, when I was walking to the Metro amidst the usual traffic and thought it would be more interesting to pretend that all the cars were giant fish (incidentally, there were fish at Fontainebleau also! they were swimming around in a fountain). Then I tell people later about the fish in the road and they think I'm a little odd -- yet "reality" TV will never make sense to me.

And I'm not sure where the fish-tangent came from. I was at Fontainebleau yesterday. Let's carry on with that.

We arrived by bus and were dropped off just in front of the main entrance to the palace and surrounding gardens; there we had two choices: to take the guided tour of the interior, or.. not. Tempted by the gardens and the possibility of lunch, I headed off with the other "independantes" and we got down to the business of getting food. I ended up passing up on the very tempting ice cream (there was an "After Eight" flavor which must have been wonderful), and instead got the aforementioned grilled cheese (which involved goat cheese and Emmental, I think -- yummy but could have used a tomato). We brought our food into the garden but found that actually sitting on the grass was not allowed, so instead we found a bench near a fountain (dedicated to Artemis; the area around Fontainebleau used to be royal hunting grounds) and took note of the peacocks wandering around. There's not much you can really do with peacocks except take note of them, to be quite honest. We didn't think to try and feed them (probably discouraged, anyway).

I spent the next couple of hours wandering around the gardens, which were really lovely, and I'm glad that we were there on a nice day. I noticed some sculptures as well, but didn't really look that closely at them (sleep deprivation cut way down on the details that I noticed); however, the palace was once home to Francois le premier, a 15th-century French king who was also a key patron of Renaissance art (one of the paintings we studied in my art history class had "Ecole [school] Fontainebleau" in lieu of the artist's name), so there are some amazing pieces of art tucked away in the palace. Hard to say about the garden; I'll have to study my pictures.

I went inside the palace for a quick tour; everything was so ornate, it was hard to really get an overall impression of even just one room, except for where there were thematic colors. Lots of intricately carved furniture, wall moldings, ceiling tiles, etc; I appreciated some of the walls, actually, where these intricate litte flower designs had been handpainted all over the entire room. I walked through a sequence of rooms with chiming clocks at four o'clock, which was kind of entertaining; who knows how old the clocks were. Some of them sounded as though they'd been chiming for a while.

There was later a sort of abbreviated version of Henry Purcell's opera King Arthur, which we all had tickets for.. and I really hope I got those names right, because I can't check it right now. The opera in its full form involves a lot of spoken dialogue (which has sparked some debate over the years, apparently, as to whether or not it's technically an opera), and it's all in English. What we saw (and probably had more fun with) was just the performance of the musical pieces (in English), alternating with short narrations in French of the storyline. I understood the English and French equally well, which is to say, I understood about as much French as I normally do coming from a clear speaker, and the English difficulty was that it was being sung (so some words are just hard to pick apart) and used antiquated language (so some words I just didn't recognize in the first place). The only lyrics that I think everyone understood were in the rousing edition of some tribute to "Old England"; I don't know that a single soul in that room was actually English, but there was definitely some singing along when the troupe sang the piece again for the encore. The opera as a whole was really nice, actually -- everyone really seemed to enjoy the music.

The opera let out at about seven, and it took us more than an hour to get back to Paris due to traffic congestion (fish, whatever). My legs were plenty sore by then, having been on them for basically the entire weekend; I shared a Domino's pizza (oh yes, they are here and, more importantly, they're open until eleven) with a neighbor for dinner, and called it a night.

I'm about ready to call it a night now, actually; if my legs had autonomy over themselves, I think they'd be campaigning to find a different body right about now; the side of my brain that appreciates aesthetic experiences is pleased enough, but in the motor-movement department, things are a bit overworked. Maybe some pasta, then.

supplementary nuit blanche photo

2004-10-04T11:58:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Since I mentioned this photo in the previous entry, and then promptly realized I hadn't actually posted it, here it is: Hotel de Ville, Nuit Blanche.

nuit blanche

2004-10-04T07:55:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

This might have to be another multi-part weekend-update-entry, on account of the many hours of surreality that unfolded on Saturday night/Sunday morning. For the third year, the city of Paris held its "Nuit Blanche", a term which is generally used to describe a night where one didn't get any sleep (insomniacs unite!). This particular Nuit Blanche is a very odd, seemingly random compilation of artistic exhibits around the city, including films, art displays, and "psychosomatic" exhibits (too weird to even explain), all of which are on display from about nine pm Saturday until eight am the following morning.

My journey took me through a good chunk of the displays in the center of Paris (they were dispersed all over the city, but I was traveling by foot); we started out at the Hotel de Ville, which is pictured above (edit -- no it isn't, but I do have pictures); the crazy lit-up white thing was housing a bunch of pamphlets highlighting the nights' events. The crowd, however, might have had more to do with the free bike rental station that was there in the same plaza.

From there, we walked to Les Halles, stopping along the way to watch about five minutes of the most confusing film production of "Antigone" that I've ever seen. At les Halles, there was a "Bal Perdu", which involved "snow" in the form of foam-machines and a lot of blue lighting (very pretty!), and up on a stage was a band playing a lot of random songs (Frank Sinatra in French was featured).

From there, we stumbled into the "psychosomatic" light and sound display, which was housed underground in what looked like a shopping mall; the effect succeeded in weirding us out completely. Lots of green and blue and strange clicky-echo sounds. We left there convinced that nothing would ever surprise us again.

Soon afterwards we found ourselves at la Bourse watching Buster Keaton films which were mixed with someone else's electronic music (I've lost the name); it was quite a scene there, and full of people who were sort of sedately dancing, but we only stayed for about half an hour.

We stayed much longer, I think, at the Opera Garnier, which was lit up with lovely blue lights and hosting a melange of very good singers, accompanied by harp and singing pieces from a number of well-known operas (which I actually am not familiar with at all, but even I recognized at least the tunes of many of them). Really gorgeous; I'm glad we stumbled into that.

We took note of the super-long line for taxis, mostly because we knew some of the people in the line; it was about three in the morning, so people were starting to head home. We weren't feeling terribly tired -- there was so much going on, after all -- so we hopped into a "Hippopotamus" restaurant (a Parisian chain that stays open late) and got a late snack and coffee.

I think the Hippo diversion took up a lot of time; by the time we left, Nuit Blanche wasn't nearly as hopping with people on the road, and had taken an even more surreal turn, if that's at all possible. We passed by Printemps, a big department store by day, which was closed to the public but open to several monkeys, who were (I swear this is really what happened) wandering freely around the store, much to the amusement of people watching them from the outside via security cameras. The only one I got a picture of was chilling out at a cash register.

It was around that time that I got the idea in my head that it might be cool to ride around on a bike; we wandered back through many of the same exhibits that we'd seen earlier, which were emptier and far weirder than they had been before; the "Bal Perdu" was being cleaned up, Buster Keaton's film was still rolling with some recorded music, and then we found ourselves at Hotel de Ville again, in the relatively-short line for bike rentals.

By this time, the metro was running again, and we could have gone home; there was a good twenty minutes or so that we spent in line debating what to do. We were scheduled to go on a day trip in six hours to Fontainebleau, we weren't going to get much sleep anyway at that point... and then we were at the front of the line, and we had bikes, and that settled it right there.

I think nothing can possibly describe the fantastic feeling of being on a bike, moving quickly, after having spent several hours walking around by foot. I don't think I've ever been more appreciative of a bicycle than I was at six am Sunday morning. It was still dark at that point, but perfect for riding around -- there were virtually no cars on the road, and no crowds of people to push through. We rode past Notre Dame and, with the vague destination of the Eiffel Tower in our minds, followed the Seine along the left bank, taking blurry pictures of various monuments along the way. The picture above of Place de la Concorde was one of those -- not blurry, in that case, because I rested the camera atop a wall.

We got to the Eiffel Tower and were somewhat surprised, but oddly not that disappointed, to find that it wasn't lit up. We circled several times underneath it, appreciated the fact that the moon was bright in the sky by then, and then made a long loop down the Champ de Mars before heading back.

The sky was beginning to lighten by then -- it must have been about seven. We rode back along the right bank of the Seine; everything was very quiet, being Sunday morning. We had the vague idea that it would be great to find an open bakery and get super-fresh croissants, but that didn't end up happening.

I think that it didn't really come to me just how long I'd been awake until the moment that I was stopped briefly in the road, noticing just how light the sky had become, and then suddenly all the streetlights turned off, putting a subtle but punctuated end to Nuit Blanche. We returned the bikes at Hotel de Ville, passing along the way the crazy Antigone film that we'd seen at the beginning of the night (still going, but with no audience save the street-cleaning crew), and then descended into the metro station.

Fontainebleau will be a much shorter entry, but I do have some good pictures to post with it; stay tuned.

into the swing of things

2004-09-30T08:52:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

A lovely photo of Roussillon, accompanied by a quick school-day entry. Classes began just this week, and there has been a decent amount of resulting chaos. I changed around one of my classes, which somehow resulted in me making visits to three different teachers over the course of the week (all very helpful).

Tomorrow is my first school-group-visit to the Louvre for my art history class; hopefully I'll be able to find the group in the busy museum entryway.

I feel like I should be inserting at least some random cultural tidbits, but I've been writing overdue emails for the past hour, and I think my brain needs a break. Do notice, however, the new link at the top of the page to Scott's London journal -- he just arrived there a few days ago. Some of the frustrations that he's been reporting have made me think that even though I probably blame the language-difficulty for almost all of the problems I run into over here, the language itself probably only accounts for a small fraction of the culture shock.

south of france!

2004-09-27T07:06:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

The photo above was taken across the Rhone river looking towards the impressively old walled village (town? city?) of Avignon, where I spent Friday and part of Saturday. The trip was really lovely; we left Paris early Friday morning, where it was dark and raining, and three hours later had been transported via TGV to the sunny south of France. The Mistral was blowing in full force, which was actually kind of fun; it felt nice to be a little more subject to forces of nature like sun and wind than is typically the case in the city.

We toured around Avignon on Friday, which included a guided tour of the Palais des Papes and a lot of (unguided) sitting around in various picturesque gardens afterwards. The main road that runs through the middle of Avignon boasts an impressive number of brand-name stores, but I didn't really feel compelled to shop for clothes, especially since there wasn't much room in the small bag I'd brought for souvenirs.

The next morning we broke off into smaller groups and saw different towns in Provence. The group I was in started off with a tour of the Abbaye de Senanque, a 12th-century Cistercian monastery which is situated in this rocky little valley and surrounded by small fields of lavender (which was just barely turning purple when I saw it; I think it blooms a little later in the season). The monastery, which is still home to a handful of monks, was very peaceful; many of us agreed that we wouldn't hesitate to take a long retreat there.

The town of Gordes was nearby, and we poked around its winding streets for a little while before having lunch. Towns seem often to be perched atop hills, and are very condensed, which is kind of an interesting contrast to the towns (and cities) I'm used to which just kind of sprawl out in all directions.

The last town we visited was Roussillon, which is a little busier than Gordes as a result of the gorgeous ochre deposits in the surrounding area; everything stonemade in the town has this warm orange tone to it, which has apparently attracted visitors since Roman times. Unfortunately I didn't get nearly as many pictures of Roussillon as I would have liked, since my camera batteries were exhausted by then (I took 78 pictures on the trip, which is quite impressive for me -- the whole digital aspect of the camera has made me a lot less stingy with the shots I take than I was with film).

After Rousillon, we were back on the TGV to Paris, plenty tired from our tours but wishing that we'd had more time to hang out; it wasn't particularly warm there, but it was brillantly sunny and the scenery was really amazing. I can't really do much justice to the region with a single journal entry describing a 36-hour visit.

Back in Paris, classes have begun! I just got out of my French literature class, which seems like it's going to be really good, and my next is Advanced Composition in about an hour. Not so looking forward to that one anymore; I think it's going to involve a lot of homework in the form of essays and papers.

dance fever

2004-09-20T08:45:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

I've got in my uploaded photo collection at least a few more really nice shots of Parisian monuments and such, which I will hopefully get a chance to post in turn, but for now, to best illustrate my weekend-story, I think it's more appropriate to post this mediocre shot of the annual techno parade.

I started out Saturday -- a really lovely day -- at the picturesque MusÃ©e Rodin, sort of halfheartedly studying amidst the sculptures. I have some lovely shots from there, too; the grounds of this museum are really nice, and there's even a little rose garden (roses around here seem to be all in full bloom right now). It's a great place to go and just sit on a bench for a while, although naturally it's much more agreeable if the weather is cooperative, as it was Saturday.

I started to get sleepy after a couple of hours of that, and decided randomly that I'd head over to the Latin Quarter to get some coffee and maybe see if I could ask at Shakespeare & Co. about French-language poetry readings. That plan pretty much was lost as soon as I got off the train.

I had sort of noticed that the train I was on seemed full, but attributed that to the fact that the past weekend was also la FÃªte du Patrimoine, when all the government establishments open their doors for public viewing. Then I heard the commotion on the road above me, which I couldn't make any sense of. It made even less sense when I surfaced and saw, directly in front of me on la Boulevard St-Germain, a pirate ship (actually a large float) blasting techno music. It was moving slowly, and in its wake appeared to be the entire student population of Paris, dancing in the road!

Oddly enough, I saw not a single cop, although some students I compared noted with today affirmed that there were some towards the back of the parade. But what fun! Kids found ways to climb to the top of just about every semi-stable structure lining the road to dance atop; stoplights, bus shelters, storefronts, etc. I followed the parade for a while, losing track of both time and location, so that when I reached the end of it, I was quite tired (feverish, it turned out, but I didn't know that at the time), and disoriented. I don't regret not going to a government building, though, in lieu of the parade; it might have lacked the costumes involved with the Halloween parade in New York but it was about ten times as fun.

As for the fever, I got over that Saturday night/Sunday morning, and spent the entirety of Sunday laying low; a lot of kids are coming down with colds around here. My host mom has reassured me that she has plenty of medicine around the house that she'd be happy to lend me if the need arises; for now I'm dosed up on Sudafed and making an effort to eat plenty of oranges.

duck!

2004-09-20T08:18:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Found this lovely design on the side of a random truck; the weekend had a couple of interesting occurences, but I'll save the techno-party for another entry (craziness!).

Last night I had dinner with my host family for the second time, which seemed to go fairly well, though not without some excitement. The dad and son hunt together nearly every weekend, and the dad was telling me about the latest excursion, during which I pretty much just kept up the nod-and-smile routine; even if I knew enough French to get into the whole killing-for-sport debate, it's probably best to let it go.

I guess I seemed interested enough in the subject, though, because after describing the technique of shooting a rifle (something about locking your shoulders, I think), he reached into a random bag on the ground that I hadn't even noticed earlier and, as though to illustrate better the story, pulled out a dead duck!

My straight face failed me there, and I think I let out some kind of whimper that prompted him to laugh, but he did at least put the duck away. He later teased me about being squeamish -- "It's nature!" he declared. Ehh... maybe hunting season won't last past October.

Later in the evening, I was talking to the host mom about how her son is learning English; I asked if the teacher was English or American, and she said that he was probably French (not surprising, I guess; most high school French teachers in the US are American). She was saying that she wanted him to practice speaking with me, so that he could learn the American accent. I pointed out that a good deal of English speakers are perfectly understandable worldwide with an English accent, but she said that she believed the American accent was "better;" interesting. Another NYU student pointed out to me later that an American accent in a native French speaker would indicate that the family had the money to travel back and forth to the states, making it something of a prestigious accent; seems ironic if this is the case, since nearly all Americans refer to the English accent as sounding the most "proper".

the magical francophone fountain

2004-09-17T07:45:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Sort of a random Notre Dame photo, taken a couple of weeks ago; the best time to take pictures of the monuments around here seems to be around sunset (or, I guess, sunrise, but I'm usually otherwise occupied at that time). There's a random public water fountain just across the street from the cathedral, which some French lady snubbed while I was nearby ("I don't know... where does this water come from?"), but I drank it, along with a friend I was with, and we wondered to ourselves if perhaps it would improve our French speaking skills ("Maybe we're speaking French right now without even knowing it because we're so good!").

Alas, I'm not so good; I got an assignment returned in which there was an embarrassing situation of article misuse (an easy mistake for beginners, but I should know better): it was a story about a mouse (une souris) and I thought to myself, without thinking to maybe check a dictionary, that since it was about a boy mouse, I could refer to him as "le souris" (using the masculine article). Lesson learned -- such is not the case. "The mouse" is always la souris.

Interesting French newsbit, which I understood only portions of via nightly news and newspapers: at the beginning of this week there was a huge buzz about a rabies vaccine that had just been released. I'm not sure if it's mandatory or not for people to get their dogs vaccinated (I think not), but either way, there was a great deal of discussion over "should you vaccinate your dog?" etc. For me, despite having never had a dog, it doesn't seem like something I'd even question: of course I'd want my dog vaccinated. So I puzzled over why it was creating such excitement over here, and eventually asked one of my teachers. She explained simply, "The French are very anti-vaccines," which I'm not really clear about, but it does at least explain the controversy.

Yesterday I went to the Louvre for the second time, with the goal of seeing the Greek and Roman sculptures (there's something I like a lot about those eras), and ended up incorporating the Mona Lisa into the trip (it's small! and surrounded by tourists!). The Louvre is a good place to hear a lot of different languages; there seemed especially to be a lot of American tourists going through (or maybe they're just louder, no?).

books and some crazy milk

2004-09-15T10:52:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Above is the Shakespeare & Company bookstore of Paris, which is probably one of the most well-known bookstores in Europe, as I think it was the first to carry copies of Ulysses, and there's something else and an important name that I'm forgetting, which would both make that history a little more impressive. But history aside, it's still a pretty cool place; lots of couches are scattered around the place, a cat lives there, and most of the second floor is dedicated to books not-for-sale but just there to read for anyone who wants to hang out for a while. There are apparently Monday-night poetry readings, which I missed this week but might make an effort to see next time. The entire store is English-language. I might make more of an effort to seek out French poetry readings, though.

Yesterday I sort-of-finalized my schedule of classes for the semester, which consists of four courses: Masterpieces of French Literature, Advanced Composition (basically, a writing class), European Painters (part 1 of 2), and French-African Relations. I decided on that last one over the European Union class when the advisor I was speaking with described it as being "more literary." I'm kind of looking forward to it, though -- I haven't studied history or politics since high school and this one sounds genuinely interesting.

With all that worked out, I won't have any classes on Tuesdays, but might have the occasional one on Fridays (museum visits for the art history class), and my Wednesdays aren't so well scheduled, with classes straight through from about 10 am until 4 pm. I'm not such a great master of scheduling over here, I guess.

However, I've at least mastered the bank account issue! I am, as of yesterday, the proud holder of one carte bleue, so I can finally withdraw money from my account. This means that I'll be going grocery shopping today! Good stuff.

Speaking of shopping for stuff: just yesterday I stopped at a random supermarket to get some skin lotion, which I might add is hard to locate if you're me and you don't understand how things are labeled. I think the rough translation on the label of what I ended up getting is something like "makes skin feel like water". It's some generic brand, but ended up being some really fantastic lotion; it's not unlike the pleasant surprise one gets when eating cheese over here, because even though it's usually inexpensive and sometimes even the same type as what there is in the states, it's just somehow better over here. On the other hand, I have yet to hear anyone say a good thing about the orange juice; I have a feeling that unless you squeeze your own, you're out of luck in that department.

Two more things on the grocery-store food: first of all, I thought it was interesting how many of the cereals, even many of the "adult"-centered ones, have chocolate in them. My new favorite one (aforementioned) does not, though; I'm content with the awesome dried fruit. Also, the milk situation, I think, puzzled everyone at first, because 1) it comes in opaque plastic bottles that resemble laundry detergent containers, and 2) it's not refrigerated. The second point, more so than the first, was the main reason that it took me a good week to finally buy some, since I was so confused about the whole thing. I'm still not really sure why it's okay to not refrigerate the milk -- and admittedly, it smells a little cheesy, but tastes just fine. I think the idea is to keep it cool once it's been opened, like soy milk (which I haven't had the time to seek out yet), which is habit enough for me.

paris la soir

2004-09-13T05:47:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

A quick between-classes entry; the photo above is a nice shot from my room, showing off my view of la Tour Eiffel by night.

Last night I went to a random (and free!) Irish music concert featuring a group named Dervish; it ended up being a lot of fun, and I'm happy to report that free music events seem to be easy to come by around here.

Over the weekend, when I was shopping for food, I found the best cereal ever: granola bits mixed with big chunks of dried fruit. Formidable! I didn't end up going swimming after all, but heard from a fellow student that it's a bit chaotic, as no one really seems to stick to strict lane discipline. Maybe I'll opt for swimming during the week, then, rather than the weekend.

More later on; I'm looking forward to my free afternoon!

dans le bois..

2004-09-11T05:10:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

The above photo was actally taken last weekend, but with luck it will be representative of the weather to come this weekend as well. Living in the pseudo-suburbs of Paris, rather than in the center of it, does have some benefits, such as a close proximity to great parks like the Bois du Boulogne (above).

The week, now that I'm trying to think back on it, has been something of a blur. Classes were in the mornings; various other activites in the afternoon. I went to the Louvre (yay!) on Thursday, and set myself up with the 15â¬ student card, which will give me unlimited visits to the museum for the next 12 months (and a discount in the gift shop!).

Yesterday was the school-sponsored boat ride on the Seine, where I took approximately ten thousand pictures with my camera; honestly, if I haven't already said this, I think it's actually impossible to take a bad picture here.

This weekend is wonderfully unstructured, which means I'll finally have a chance to buy some toilet paper, and maybe even go for a swim (there's an indoor pool just a few metro stops from here, which I am all set to try out). And homework, of course, in due time.

school begins! and the dehydration diet

2004-09-08T14:35:00.000-04:00

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Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

At the NYU center earlier today, I was happily typing along on a long entry when, to the best of my knowledge, the blogger site decided to stop loading new pages. I didn't realize this, however, until I'd tried several successive times to publish said long entry, which means I may or may not have completely killed the travel blog.

Anyway, if this post works, there should be a lovely picture heading it, which I took a few evenings ago. The weather here has been so nice; in fact, all this warm weather is putting a strain on my wardrobe, since I packed expecting it to be much cooler; the average daily high temperature is around 24Â° C.

So, a lot of Americans wonder why it is that the French seem to eat nothing but cheese and bread (and mayo, I might add, which is plentiful) and are overall very trim. My theory is that it has something to do with the fact that no one ever seems to drink water around here; my "host dad" even said something on the subject, commenting that he only drinks a little bit of water in the mornings, and not even every day! He then made some comment about Americans and sugar which got kind of lost in translation, but whatever the problem is, it's his opinion that drinking a liter of water every day isn't helping anything. So, make of that what you will.

Meanwhile, the preliminary class has indeed started (today was the second day), and I actually have some homework to attend to as a result.

school, and the dehydration diet

2004-09-08T14:14:00.000-04:00

DSCN0054
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

Having just paid a credit card bill online (probably among the more technologically adept things I've ever done), I'm beginning to get the sense of being more settled here. Having my laptop decide to start working was also instrumental to the reduction of stress.

I have taken many, many fabulous photos -- I think it's actually impossible to take a bad photo in Paris -- but it will be at least a little while before I master the art of posting them online. The main problem there is simply that there are too many people on the NYU server now (in the afternoon, after everyone has gotten out of class) to do things like upload photos... so some morning soon, I'll get on that. Anyway, picture la tour Eiffel, half-lit by a setting sun, a pink sky as background, the fountains of la Trocadero in the foreground. And while the Washington Monument isn't to be messed with, the ObÃ©lisque here is complete with actual hieroglyphics and detailed drawings that seem to be instructions on how to transport from Egypt a monument of comparable size -- I guess it might come in handy eventually.

Today was my second day of the preliminary course, which is mostly busywork designed to "reawaken" our latent French skills. Going to la Place de la Concorde was actually a part of last night's homework assignment, and over the weekend I'm to write a short conte or fairy tale. Too bad the resident kid of my homestay is twelve; younger, and maybe he'd be a good resource for making up a crazy story. Maybe I'll try him anyway, although I suspect he's more interested in sports than fantasy (and, his parents seem to want him to practice his English on me, rather than keep speaking French).

I'd also like to contribute my own thoughts on the French "diet", which seems to confound the world over with the apparent contradiction of a slender population that eats nothing but carbs. Part of the secret, I think, is that no one really eats between meals. But I think the real key is this: no one ever seems to drink water. My "host dad" was even telling me that he only drinks it "sometimes, just a little in the mornings," and then made some comment about Americans and sugar that I didn't really catch (a lot is still getting lost in translation). Anyway, I'm definitely no nutritionist, so I don't really recommend anyone do the "French dehydration diet."

Speaking of food, it's high time that I ate some. Sandwiches here seem to always come on baguettes, which is way too easy to get used to.

Edit: maybe the photo worked after all? Here's hoping..

bonjour, je m'appelle sally..

2004-09-05T15:47:00.000-04:00

With school not-really-started yet, internet access is hard to come by, and now that I'm finally in front of one, it's overwhelming to think of all that has passed so far, much less to try to organize it. The city is lovely, unusually warm and sunny at the moment, and I've done very little sightseeing so far, instead spending most of my time getting set up here (I don't know if it's what one calls a nesting instinct, but whatever it is, I don't feel comfortable until I've set up a stable home base wherever I am). So now I've got a French phone line, a bank account, and a decent grasp of the metro system, but I haven't been to any museums or the like (although I did stand under the Eiffel Tower last night, but it was more a point to meet other people... will pay the 10€ to go up at some later point).

As I'm sort of imposing on my host family to use the computer, I'll cut this entry short; hopefully I'll have the chance to update again soon.

the big packing adventure

2004-08-30T21:10:00.000-04:00

packing
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

This is the state that the guestroom has found itself in lately, as I'm using the space to organize everything that I'm bringing with me to Paris. Notice the desk to the right, which has on it a moderate stack of books.

I've got some time tomorrow before I need to be at the airport, which is nice; I'll be able to do some final packing without being groggy/rushed.

I went on a random journey to Yorktown today, which was abuzz with teachers setting up for the start of school next week. I even got a chance to look (briefly) at the much-needed new addition, which will probably confuse many a freshman since the hallway goes in a complete circle, but otherwise seems like a nice expansion. Most of the teachers were headed off to some meeting, though, so my visits were short (I saw Mr. Palermo and Mrs. Ratchford).

Time to get into that back-to-school spirit, I guess; I've saved my school-supply shopping for Paris. Looking forward to the (reputed) gridded paper.

errands and indecisiveness

2004-08-27T00:23:00.000-04:00

It feels like I've been putting more miles on the car this past week than I have the whole summer, just from running so many random errands. That said, maybe tomorrow will be spent closer to the house; today I started physically laying things out to be packed, and I think this theme will continue for a few more days. I also now have euros to burn, and traveler's cheques -- which will hopefully get me going for a while.

I'm thinking (already) about switching around one of the classes that I signed up for; instead of taking two literature classes, I'm thinking I might just take one, and then have another of a different theme -- the one that comes to mind is titled "France and the European Union", with another possibility being "French-African Relations". I haven't had great experiences with government/politics-centered classes in the past, but then, I used to really hate French class too, so I guess I might as well be open-minded about it.

snuffles makes his cameo

2004-08-24T18:10:00.000-04:00

snuffles
Originally uploaded by sallymanhattan.

The digital-camera-adventure was successful, and here is Mr. Snuffles in all his glory to prove it.

I'm not sure how often I'll actually be posting photos, but at least I've figured out how to, which is probably the more important step.

One week to go -- tomorrow is laundry-day.

digital camera guilt complex

2004-08-24T00:13:00.000-04:00

If I do in fact have any discipline, I'll be updating this much more often in Paris than I have been this summer. I expect there will be more to discuss, anyway; at this point, it's just a matter of organizing everything. Not really any humiliating-yet-someday-funny translation-mistakes to report from here.

This week's theme is last-minute-buying-of-things. To the best of my knowledge, I think everything I actually need is ready and waiting to be pulled together into some portable form. Today's purchase: a day planner (the same August-to-August that I get every year), even though I originally thought maybe I could get one in France. My reasoning for getting it here after all: I am boring. I love planners. It was purple. And, perhaps more realistically -- it has room for addresses in the back, so I can both take down those of people here that I plan to write to, and any future friends in Europe.

The planner was a more minor investment, however, compared to tomorrow's planned purchase: a digital camera. More portable than the lovely-but-obvious-and-large film camera I already have, and possibly easier to work with in the sense that I won't have to go get film developed -- the main tradeoff is that the pictures won't be as nice, and I won't have a lot of the same capabilities in terms of adjusting settings or zooming in and out; the digital camera I'm looking at (a Nikon Coolpix 3200) is more of a point-and-click (and check-the-LCD) kind of deal as far as I can tell. I feel like I'm betraying my camera, somehow, especially since I typically take my pictures pretty seriously, but most people I've talked to about it seem settled in favor of a digital camera's smaller size (and smaller risk, possibly, of being a target for theft).

The other night I watched L'Auberge Espagnole, which is mostly in French and Spanish (with some English) -- it's a good pick for anyone going abroad, I think.

pizza! and commerce bank

2004-08-08T13:01:00.000-04:00

Today I have received pressure to actually make some sort of plan (and by "some sort", I mean, "written down, detailed, and realistic") regarding how I'm going to manage myself financially in France. This is a little less daunting than the airplane-ticket thing, since it doesn't involve spending money but rather organizing it, but is perhaps more complicated. Not helped much by the fact that I have money in two US banks, one of which is in New York and not really accessible from Arlington except for ATM withdrawals (but I love Commerce Bank! and their lollipops are ALL red, which is like a childhood dream come true!).

So, that's that. Plan-making will commence any minute now. Probably after pizza, though, and then I'm doing my yoga-studio desk shift, which will provide me with Zen-like concentration (my job is to answer the phone and answer questions, but people rarely call, so instead I play with the radio and listen to CDs of meditation music), so maybe THEN I'll start. Unless I decide it's time to have a nap.

And it appears that if my French verbal skills have rusted a bit over the summer, my talent for procrastination is still sharp as ever.

Pizza! Discussion on the possibility of getting a digital camera (!) will be next, at some future point in time.

less than one month to go...

2004-08-03T16:03:00.000-04:00

Not sure if I'm going to actually make this into a real travel journal-esque thing for people to read, but either way, I might as well play with it a bit and get the colors and such to my liking.

This new Blogger program has a lot of kind of nifty little posting-gadgets, one of which is a numbered list-maker (also, there's a bullet-point list-maker!). Quite exciting. I'll commence with my first list, of things I've already done to get ready for Paris:

Went to French Consulate and got my student visa
Bought a giant green duffel bag
Bought a raincoat
Got my plane tickets in the mail

I think there might be more, but four bullet points is really all I need for right now. The list of things I've still got to do would have a lot more bullets (or numbers, or whatever). Here's a different list, of things I'll be doing at some point this month:

Working tomorrow at the cafe
Leaving said cafe forever on August 17th
Going to New York for two days on August 18th
Returning library books, at some point...

Okay, I'm worn out already with lists; this probably sounds wimpy of me, but one must consider that there are, hidden around my room, about thirty halfhearted four-item lists just like the ones above, which all compiled together in my head makes for a lot of bullets and a little nausea as well.