the calm before the storm

August in Paris is very strange. Everything shuts down and Parisians call it quits for the month. It's been so calm and quiet all around the city...and empty! The usually crowded sidewalks are a sea of open space and I'm loving it. I can walk through the metro without getting smacked by peoples' bags and I'm not getting side checked by people rushing by me nearly as often. I can only imagine what September will bring when everyone comes back so I'm soaking up the silence while I can.

I still have been working, teaching English to business professionals, but even that has slowed down. I have two different types of students: one group tells me how great it is to be employed in France and they try to convince me to stay here where vacation time is abundant (doesn't take much convincing); the other group complains to me about not having enough vacation time. I have no sympathy for this group and my story about working and time off in America is starting to take on the form of "when I was your age, I walked 2 miles to school every day, up hill both ways...". So the ones that complain about getting only FIVE weeks of vacation get a little lecture from me. The truth is, the French are very lucky: 35 hour work weeks and a minimum of 5 weeks of vacation. Are you kidding me? And most people get additional weeks which accumulate from the times that - God forbid - they put in more than 35 hours/week. I would say, on average, people get about 7 weeks of vacation here. The extremely lucky ones get 8 or 9 weeks. My response to these people: "So basically you work a collective 3 months out of the year..." And so the August vacation is born. It's not just France, most Europeans take off a solid three weeks in August to go relax and drink wine in a different city. Must be nice!

While the Parisians are off gallivanting around the country and continent, I've been here at home. It's been nice, though. I've been roaming around Paris a little bit and mentally doing nothing because I know school is just a few short weeks away and that requires more brain power than I usually have. I made it to Paris Plages (translation: Paris Beaches) which is a strange urban attempt to bring the beach to Paris. It lasts about a month and they line the Seine river with sand and chairs and ice cream shops...it's fun until it gets really hot and you realize one essential thing that is missing: water. Nobody is about to (or is allowed to) jump into the Seine and that's the only body of water in the city. Here's a glimpse of the faux beach:




One of my favorite days was a couple of weeks ago when I had lunch with my 75 year old gal pal, Marie. We were talking during lunch and she was trying to explain to me this sculpture in a park nearby where she used to take her kids when they were little. So after lunch (and after wine and champagne) Marie strapped on her 2.5 inch wedge sandals and we walked to the park. And all around the park. It was a hike and I was tired when we finished! Here are a few of my favorite pictures I snapped with my phone:

The sculpture Marie was searching for. It's actually pretty huge - you used to be able
to go inside of it and climb stairs to the top.

A statue made of wood and a very thorough explanation from Marie on what she thought it represented

Marie's hiking shoes of choice

A garden we stumbled upon

Playing in the park

Paula: Oh no, a fence! We'll have to go back around.
Marie: We don't need to go back, we'll climb over and through. Follow me!

view from the top

The new apartment is pretty great! It's small by American standards (but I have a real bedroom now), it's quirky, charming and entertaining because I live on a busy intersection (and have a great view of Parisian driving, which is scary to watch at times). I moved from the red dot below to the red star. It's a little further away from school, but I'm loving the new location and the proximity to other things (like great shopping).



Here's my prime real estate:




























With a real bedroom! (complete with chandelier...this was there before)














The front door...that opens up into my bedroom. Kind of strange but it's growing on me. There's a door to the main room and also another room with the toilet and also washing machine (a lot of French apartments have separate toilets from the bathroom...another thing that just grows on you after awhile)








The main room - great windows and a great view!







The "kitchen"...basically part of the main room. Not much working space but it's not so bad! Surprisingly, I have everything I need. Even an oven!





Bathroom, part II. Shower, sink, other bathroomy things.





















An incredible view of the place I got robbed - Sacré-Cœur Basilica






And free entertainment...right outside my window! This is why you should never drive in Paris - what a cluster:


So there you have it...the grand tour - visitors welcome!

tour de lance...i mean france

Well, another Tour de France has come and gone and I was lucky enough to be in Paris for the final stage of the rigorous bike competition. It was fun to join the huge crowd waiting to see the cyclists make their final few laps around the Champs-Élysées (a fancy shmancy shopping street...think Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior, etc.). And when I say huge crowds...I mean huge:

There was a sea of people that surrounded the streets, literally it went on for miles. My friends and I were pretty close to the action though with only one row of people between us and the street so we were able to see a lot. We got there pretty early because we weren't sure how busy it would be or how soon the cyclists would be in the heart of Paris - and we ended up waiting for a good four hours. We could see on a huge screen that they were on their way, but it just seemed like it was taking forever. But, who am I to complain after these guys have spent the last three weeks biking up, down and all around the country?! By the time they reached Paris, they had been on their bikes for three weeks (with only two days of rest) covering 2,200 miles - I could definitely hang around for four hours to see them finish. Here is this year's path:


This was Lance Armstrong's final Tour de France and he let some Spanish guy named Alberto Contador take the win this year. It would have been fun to see him win one last time...maybe he'll come out of retirement (again) and give it another whirl. I will definitely go try and see it again next year! Here is a picture - basically a blur of jerseys and bikes...


And here's a little video:

Some Like it Hot

Summer is in full swing here...and I seem to have missed the memo that you buy fans before it gets hot out. I got back from Germany on Sunday and moved into my apartment as soon as I got back to Paris. Buildings in Europe are so old and electricity is expensive that, consequently, air conditioning basically doesn't exist. There are some restaurants with AC - if they have it, they advertise it in writing on the windows - and there are some stores with AC...other than that, you're out of luck. The next best thing to AC, then, is a fan to avoid that point of heat stoke when it hits 93 degrees at 4pm with 99% humidity and no breeze. Ahhh, summer. Before I left for Germany it was getting pretty hot, but since I knew I would be moving apartments solo upon my return, I decided to wait on buying a fan until I arrived at my new place. Bad idea. In two days, I've gone into no less than twenty different stores of various kinds all over the city looking for a fan only to come back home empty handed! I've been asking if I could buy the floor models but quit after a string of dirty looks from the salespeople like I had just asked some horribly offensive question. Jaime tried looking online to see if I could order a fan on Amazon and have it shipped but what normally would take a week could now take up to 5 weeks - I'm sensing some kind of European fan shortage/crisis and I'm in the thick of it. The students I teach English to find my inability to cope without AC very entertaining. I asked one student if anybody here has window AC's like I had in my Minneapolis apartment and he told me "we would never do that, not unless you're using it to put in the window of a Chinese restaurant". Ok then, I'll wait it out. I'm lucky at the moment to have a little relief from the heat in the wake of some torrential downpours that lasted most of today, but I'll still be on the prowl tomorrow in search of the rare and elusive fan. Luckily, I'm pretty preoccupied with the new apartment. Pictures coming soon!

To Catch A Thief

The past month has been super busy, but I'm happy to report that as of Wednesday I finished my first semester of grad school! It feels good to be done...for now. You always think that not having much to do sounds like a good deal until you realize that it's more boring than it is fun. I still have work to keep me semi-busy though, so I'm not too worried. My group of friends, as expected, is dwindling. Everyone is wrapping up and heading back to the states. These three gems (from left: Libby, Peter, Kate) left in May and the rest of my non-school friends will be gone by July! Time to branch out...

This Friday I'll be traveling to Norway to see what Scandinavia is all about. Jaime is currently there for about a month taking a class so I decided this was a good excuse for me to take a little trip. Tickets were only $30...the joys of traveling with RyanAir! I think J will probably get sick of me though...a week after I come back from Norway I'll be setting up camp in her apartment for two weeks while I'm between homes.

A couple of weekends ago the girls and I were trying to have one last hurrah before Libby and Kate went back to the states. So one Friday, we went to a place in Paris where there's a great view of the city on the steps of a famous basilica called Sacré-Cœur. We camped out on the steps with food + wine along with many other people, mostly American tourists. The view is amazing during the day and the night so it's no wonder why this spot becomes sort of a tourist trap at all hours.

Here we are in the thick of it...

So this is the whole group, let's call this the before picture (from left: me, Hannah, Libby, Sara, Kate, Sarah).
Since this area attracts so many tourists, there are a lot of people trying to make money by entertaining the visitors. I'll admit, I'm a sucker for these things and usually find them pretty amusing. The entertainment on this particular night was among the best I've seen in Paris and we totally lucked out and ended up having really good seats on the steps to watch two crazy guys light sticks on fire and throw them around. So after the first "show" these guys did (see video of the maniacs below) it started to get dark and the crowd grew. I stood up and and very quickly noticed a guy sitting really close to where my feet were. One step up, I had my iphone (the love of my life) and my camera wrapped up in my scarf sitting by my purse. I went to go move my things because I didn't like how close this kid was to my stuff when I realized my phone was gone. I knew that these two things had both been by me and not in the bag I had with me so, like a crazy person, I immediately I grabbed on to the guy's shirt collar from the back in case he tried to move (I was a little worried that when I grabbed him he didn't move at all, actually - so now I was thinking "Great, I have a firm grip on some random kid's shirt and I'll look like a jackass when I find my phone in my bag"...but I didn't let go.). My friends were wondering what I was doing so I said "this kid has my phone!" and freaked out a little (a lot). So Kate told me to look through my purse quick to make sure it wasn't in there and so I let her take over the shirt grabbing responsibilities (the kid is still not moving) and Sarah was smart and called my phone really quickly (this whole situation really all happened in a matter of about 20 seconds) and sure enough his pants lit up and started vibrating...my phone! Thanks kid, for stealing my phone and shoving it down your pants. So he gives it to me and in the heat of the moment I might have kicked him in the back and smacked him on the side of face. Ok, I definitely did. I don't know what got into me. Surprisingly, this didn't phase him much so I made him get up and leave. Sarah got a picture of me making the guy leave and we'll call this the after picture...
Well that's only the first part of the story. Not very long after this, Sarah noticed him sitting above our group now and she saw that he had a wallet in his hands. It turns out that he had been digging around Sara's (not to be confused with Sarah with an h) backpack and he had her wallet! So we got her wallet back and he left. Again. Shortly after this, some guy came down to talk to us and it turns out he was an undercover cop and he wanted to make sure we had everything. Well we thought we did until Sara realized she didn't have her phone. So a few of the girls ran to find the police and in the meantime Kate had called Sara's phone and the police answered. And at this point, it's off to jail for Kate and Sara...the police needed someone to file a police report so that they had enough dirt on this guy to arrest him finally. So the rest of us headed home and the other girls got to hang out with the cops for a little while and were driven home in their squad car eventually. Unfortunately, Sara did end up losing some money but in the end everything worked out. This was my first time being robbed in Paris so I was surprised when it happened. I feel like Paris is pretty safe, but like anywhere, you have to keep a close eye on your things (especially in tourist areas).

Here's a video of the awesome pyro guys who were inadvertently keeping onlookers nice and distracted:

some serious cravings

Well, I hit the 100 day mark a few days ago...it sounds like a really long time when I think about it but it's been going by pretty fast. I'm one month away from finishing off my first semester and remembering what it's like to manage my time between research papers and final exams again . It's a different sentiment now that I'm knee deep in various projects from when I was sitting back at my desk at Target thinking about how fun it would be to go back to school. I have about 12 hours of actual class time every week...what have I been doing with the other 156 hours? I don't know. Any way you count it up, I've been enjoying school and my time here so I guess that's what really matters!

I do know where some of those hours are wasted...food cravings. For the past couple of weeks, I've been getting involved in various conversations with Americans where we just sit and talk about what foods we are craving the most. I'm craving things I didn't even eat that much of back home, but just knowing that it is unattainable until I go home in December makes it worse. As of today, I would give my right arm for:

a Chipotle burrito bowl
some nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips
chocolate chip cookies
hint of lime tortilla chips
mac 'n cheese*
Leeann Chin
a cupcake
dill pickles
bruegger's bagels
grilled anything
crunchy peanut butter

*the saddest mac n' cheese story: I currently have mac 'n cheese being held hostage by the French post office. I hope to get it tomorrow. Jaime visited in February and brought me three ziploc bags of m-n-c that I had actually brought to her when I visited Germany in November. She was kind enough to bring me three of the aforementioned packs that I have been rationing since February, only using them for the most severest of cravings. Skyping with her one night (for those of you who don't know skype - it's video chatting), she said she was going to make some for dinner and it sounded so good that I decided that I was also going to crack open the last m-n-c I had and eat it. I've never been so excited for this delicious .50¢ meal. Unfortunately, Jaime has a habit of using half of the noodles and all of the cheese packet for a more robust m-n-c. Unfortunately, my last packet was a victim of this habit, with half of the noodles and no cheese packet in sight. Word on the street is Jaime felt bad and convinced my mom to send me some replenishment, but like I said, it is currently sitting in the French post office. I thought I was picking it up last week when I went to get a package, and although the contents of said package were lovely, I couldn't eat it. So with any luck, I will be noshing on m-n-c tomorrow.

And no, I'm not pregant. Girl just needs some American food.

Anyways, April turned out to be a pretty busy month for me between school, work and traveling...or as it turned out towards the end of the month, not traveling - the volcano situation in Europe quickly put an end to a trip to Istanbul, Turkey that I was planning to take with a couple of friends. I was pretty bummed when our flight got canceled, but with two years in Europe I think I'll make it there eventually.

I did make it out of Paris, however, to do some sightseeing around the Loire Valley in France. Pictures are up if you want to check out some crazy big castles! We took the train to a city called Blois (about an hour and a half away from Paris) and stayed there for two nights. Saturday we got up and set off for the castles...at the end of the day we had biked about 40 miles! It was pretty exhausting to say the least mostly due to the terrain...it was hilly and we were riding our bikes around on gravel paths through the woods. Sunday was short and sweet...we picnicked outside, walked around the city and caught the train back to Paris.

As for the apartment I looked at, I signed the lease and will move in on July 11th! I got blacklisted from one rental agency in the process but in the end everything worked out. Agency fees here are beyond ridiculous, but it's hard to find apartments in Paris so you almost have to work with an agency find anything. Two different agencies had been working with me, but I was able to talk one into giving me 40% off of the fees whereas the other one wouldn't budge...so I figured saving 900 euros was worth having the other agency hate me. They had some choice words for me in an e-mail written in poor English...something to the effect of "Please never contact us again. We prefer to work with someone who is serious and polite." But alas, I do have an apartment lined up. I will, however, be homeless for a week between when I move out of my current place and when I can move into the next place, so I'll be escaping Paris between apartments and visiting Jaime in Germany. I have a feeling we'll be eating mac 'n cheese.

home sweet home

Sometimes it takes leaving for days at a time to make a place feel like home. Although I've been living here since January, coming back from my trip to Italy was the first time I felt like Paris is home. The familiarity of the city, my neighborhood, the comfort of my own bed and my own apartment were drawing me back home. Vacations are fun but it's always nice to come home.

Italy was a great time and I'll post pictures soon! I need a little time to organize and sort through all of them - you know how vacation pictures are...you look back at them and wonder why you took a picture of that tree or why you took a picture of that lizard. Cagliari felt a lot different from Paris - the streets are so tiny you can barely fit a car between buildings, which are all vibrant colors, the language is fast and the only word I knew was grazie (thank you). I went with two girls from school and in five days we ate and walked our way through the city. Lots of pasta and lots of gelato...and now lots of exercising! We met a lot of interesting people from around the world; it's always fun to see why people travel and find out what brings them to the same place as you.

Life got really busy today as I officially started a job! This has been in the works for a few weeks and I think it will be fun which isn't something I normally say about work. Tom (my step dad) sent me information about a job opportunity that he heard about through someone he knew from when he was getting his certificate to teach English as a second language. The hiring manager is in Minnesota which has made things a little difficult (like my interview via the telephone at midnight my time) but I think it will be a good fit. My job is to teach English over the telephone to French people that mostly need to learn English for work. Teaching over the phone is interesting but as I saw today first hand, it seems to work. Beyond speaking with them I can also assign my students lessons online for extra help - but I'm mostly there to correct their speaking skills and help with grammar. I had a wide range of people today - one girl kept referring to her son as she and could only speak in present tense (which was hard when I asked what she did last weekend), but then on the other end of the spectrum I spoke with a man who's English was nearly perfect but he is required by his company to take courses so we chatted for an hour on the phone about weird things like his recent eye surgery which had me cracking up - in his words "One of my eyes was looking out and one of my eyes was looking in. After my surgery, I don't have to choose which eye will watch tv anymore!" I'm excited to have something to do over the summer and even more excited that it can all be done from home!

This weekend I'll be in the Loire Valley with some friends - we are renting bikes and riding them around to visit famous castles in France. The pictures I've seen of the castles are amazing so I'm excited to see them in person. The friends that I spend most of my time with are in Paris to teach and their contracts are up at the end of this week (they have been here since September). Everyone will be leaving me to head back to the states in about a month so I'll be pretty bummed! There will be nine of us going and it will kind of be the last hurrah before everyone parts ways.

Well, next on my list is finding an apartment so i'm not homeless come July 1st. I'm looking at one on Wednesday so I hope it will work out...apartment searching in Paris is hard!