|
smittygal07
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Lia
Birthday: 11/17/1988
Gender: Female
Interests: Music: singing, guitar, piano, listening to, etc; reading; movies; knitting; canoeing; languages: French and Hebrew (and Italian, soon enough), creative writing.
Occupation: Artist
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/10/2005
|
|
| Last entry, written yesterday (Saturday) in the airport.
I’m back in the USA! Just killin’ time at O’Hare. As always. It’s almost 4:00 central time, and I got my mind into thinking on US time, so when I opened my computer and it said it was 10:59 PM, it really jarred me. Bedtime! Sorry, that was all over the place. Anyway, travel stories. I was supposed to go from Paris to Chicago to Minneapolis to Chicago to Cleveland, which is ridiculous. I had booked a round trip ticket from Minneapolis which I subsequently wanted to change. I called farebuzz.com, where I bought my tickets, and they told me I couldn’t do a “stopover” in Chicago and just pick up my baggage there and not go to MSP because it would be checked through to MSP. Grr. So I booked another ticket from MSP to Cleveland. Then when I got to Charles de Gaulle this morning, the woman told me that I’d have to pick up my baggage in Chicago because it was the first port of entry. What?? So I asked if I could just keep my luggage in Chicago and not go onto to MSP. She said, “I guess, if you want to.” SCORE! No superfluous Chicago-MSP-Chicago flights!!! Just 7 hours to kill in O’Hare instead.
The flight was fine. Long, bad food, movie malfunctions. I watched 12 Rounds because I thought it was the channel that The International was on—it was not very good. Then I watched Last Chance Harvey, which was nothing groundbreaking but quite enjoyable. Then I actually watched The International (with a short interpolation of Confessions of a Shopaholic when The International stopped working for a bit—also not very good). That made the time pass pretty quickly. I really like that American flight attendants and airport workers have a sense of humor. Not all of them, but I don’t know if I’ve ever run into a foreign transportation worker with a sense of humor. The end of the flight was fairly turbulent, and I was feeling unusually bad by the end of it. I found out more than halfway through the flight that there was another Carl on it, seated about 6 rows ahead of me. We chatted at customs, but then I’m flying American and she’s flying United, so we didn’t meet up after rechecking baggage.
The last few days in Paris were great. Wednesday night Monia did end up leaving for Venice. I finally timidly ventured out to introduce myself to Monia’s mother—a big talkative Tunisian woman. She was quite friendly. Opinionated (just like Monia, surprise surprise), a bit old fashioned (said she would have slapped Lila if Monia hadn’t been there; asked if I was married, then when she found out I was 20 she said I had a few more years…she was thinking 23 or 24), a good cook, knows how to keep a conversation going. That night I painfully painfully finished my paper for Scott.
Thursday morning we had our last Scott class, where I gave my presentation, which was short and sweet, unlike most other peoples (the short part), then got reimbursed 50 euros for having gone to museums and plays. What a great part of the program. Scott told us he was very impressed by our presentations and how we wouldn’t have been able to research them so well and present them so eloquently 10 weeks ago. Got a sandwich for lunch, hung out with people watching youtube videos while the other half of the class watched Obama’s speech. For Isabelle’s class we got our tests back, then we went to the Luxembourg Gardens to relax and talk and get a drink. It was just lovel—a perfect way to end classes. Sunny out, Isabelle is so funny and fun to talk with, and I got a menthe à l’eau! Just like in the middle school textbooks! I’m so amazed that those things actually exist.
I went home for about an hour, fed the cat, then went to the Cubana Café that I passed every day on my way to classes for drinks with a bunch of Carls. After that was our goodbye dinner. It was incredible. It was at the Auberge Nicolas Flamel (whose name I recognized from Harry Potter—turns out he’s a real person). We had the whole upstairs to ourselves. Three course meal (I had lobster tail, some sort of fish, and a chef’s assortment of tiny little desserts), amuse-bouches (amuses-bouche?), red and white wine, and at the end Scott got us cognac. Scott also got us all a gift of a nice pen, because he lamented the fact that we all write with crappy little Bics that we lose or throw away after two weeks. It was incredibly thoughtful. We also got Scott a gift of a little book where we all wrote notes and someone drew a picture of our group with Scott 10 strides ahead, because that was the way it was anytime we had a group excursion. We also got chocolates for Scott and his daughter Muriel, who turned 15 a couple weeks ago. Whenever anyone in the group had a birthday, Scott would buy them chocolates, and then say, “It’s such a shame that one person gets chocolates and the rest of you don’t, and we don’t want anyone to get jealous, so here’s a box of chocolates for everyone to share.” And these are good chocolates. So we got a box for Muriel, and then told Scott we didn’t want him to get jealous and gave him his own box. He appreciated it. It was just a fabulous night. I sat next to and chatted with Muriel, who is adorable. Scott’s wife and son (who is also a Carleton sophomore who was on a different off campus program) stopped by. Everybody looked pretty, the food was delicious, everybody was happy. The only weird thing was that Jose didn’t show up until 10:15 (the dinner started at 8), and I still don’t know why. But even that couldn’t ruin it. No better way to end.
Friday was good too. I had plans to meet up with Hunter and Megan Hafner, the girl I did KRLX news at 10 with, who was a different off-campus trip and came to visit Hunter afterwards. We met around noon with Catrice to go to this big flea market way in the north of Paris. We couldn’t find it. Apparently some other people found it afterwards (or at least found A flea market), and saw Jane Krakowski there. But anyway. We went back down to Montmartre, shopped around for some souvenirs, then went back to Hunter’s apartment for a bit. Hunter’s family provided her with her own studio apartment in Montmartre, right by their apartment. I’m not quite sure why, but it’s awesome. So we chilled there and ate chocolate and listened to jazz while they tried to decide what museum to go to. Then we went to search for gelato before they hit up the Orangerie and I went home to pack. The gelato quest took a bit longer than anticipated, but also led us to this fantastic gourmet supermarket in Galeries Lafayette. So we spent a while there ogling the jams and wines (and not even looking at the oils and vinegars). We ended up buying jam and wine to bring home, then finally getting our gelato. Afterwards they gave up on the museum idea and went to Père Lachaise instead, and I went home to pack. On the way home I bought beautiful and fragrant lilies to leave for Monia and on a whim bought a super cute and fairly large tote bag because I was afraid I wouldn’t fit everything in my purse. I pretty much hadn’t eaten all day (besides gelato and chocolate), and when I got home Monia’s mom had made pasta and put it in the fridge, so I ate a ginormous plate of pasta and meatballs, followed by bread and cheese (obviously), then packed and relaxed. And not only did everything that needed to fit, but my big bag was not overweight! Hallelujah!
And now I’m in O’Hare with 4 hours to go. And I guess it’s time to retire the blog again. So, au revoir until Mali? Let’s hope. Thanks for reading, everyone
| | |
| Not a long post right now, because I should be finishing my paper. But tonight Monia is supposed to leave for Venice (for work, to go to the Venice Biennial), and her mom was going to come stay with Lila and, by extension, me. There's been lots of uncertainty the past few days about what will actually happen, because Monia's mom (nicknamed Mamie) has been sick, Lila's a handful, etc etc. So Mamie arrived today, sick, and while I've been in my room I've just heard uncomfortably quiet conversations, voices-raised conversations (Mamie to both Monia and Lila separately, I'm pretty sure), a few "If she were my daughter I'd...", some door slams from Lila, the works. Just now, Monia ran to the door of my room and said, in English, "It's not drama." And then mouthed "Help me!" Hahaha I love Monia.
Another reason to love her--she gave me a gorgeous ring as a going-away present. It goes perfectly with the outfit I'm wearing today. The type of thing I would never buy but love. Here's the company: http://www.satelliteparis.com/en/index.html
This time tomorrow I will be done with classes until September 2009. !!!
| | |
| Alors, not all that much to report today. The weather is lovely, and in an hour I'm going to Shannan's for a party--her host mom was super set on her having a party chez elle. They chose this date a month ago. I baked a brown butter raspberry tart to bring that I'm quite excited to sample. Today was actually fairly packed. We went to the catacombs, which were cool and unsettling. There's nothing creepy about the intentions--the tunnels were made by people taking limestone out to build buildings with. Scott likened Paris to an upside down cake (I think). There's a huge network of tunnels, of which only a small part are opened to the public. But the reason the catacombs are famous is that in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Paris was expanding, they emptied all the little church and neighborhood cemeteries, because they were impractical for city planning and unsanitary. And they put all the bones in the catacombs. Not only put, but arranged artfully. So you're going through these tunnels, there's a sculpture, cool, there was a cave-in here, yikes, and then you get to a room telling you that no flash is allowed after this point and to be respectful because this is a sacred place. Then you keep walking and you're surrounded on either side by densely packed and stacked bones. Maybe 10 rows of bones and then 1 of skulls, etc etc. They go on for a really long time. There are A LOT of bones. There are also plaques here and there with poetry in Latin and French about life and death. And lots of bones. It was very cool.
After the catacombs I went to the Pompidou museum to finally see my art history subject's work...and it's not there, because they have currently dedicated their entire contemporary collection to women artists, and Philippe Parreno is a man. Well shit. Especially because my ISIC card didn't work and I had to pay 9 euros to get in. So I saw some Sophie Calle, who I like a lot, and a few other artists who I had learned about in class, then was about to go get some falafel when I walked by the library side of the building...and there was no line. This is the place I left last Sunday because there was a 3 hour wait. So I went to get falafel, the falafel restaurants were closed (Shabbat prep, I assume), got foccacia that really wasn't foccacia, even though the guy was Italian, then went to the library and got some work done. After that came home, did some work, read, relaxed.
Yesterday was a super long day of classes. Jerome, 9-10:30. Scott final exam, 11-12:30. Lunch with Scott, 12:30-1:30. Isabelle, 1:30-3:30. I headed straight home afterwards because I was so tired. So spoiled. Anyway, I baked when I got home, ate alone because Monia said she didn't know when she'd get home, and then Monia came home and said her "New Yorkese" friends were in town and they were gonna come over. So I got to meet Tracy and Andy--Tracy is a costumer at Julliard, from what I understood, and Andy's an artist and professor. We went out with them and had a lovely time. Monia speaks very little English, they speak less French, but it works. It was pretty hilarious.
Wednesday...we wanted to go to the French Open. Some friends went over the weekend and got in at 11 am and got 21 euro tickets. So I took an hour metro ride across Paris, was one stop from being there, when Claire called and told me that they weren't selling tickets till 5 that day. Awesome. So I got back on the metro and went to the Musée Quai Branly, which is the museum of art from everywhere that isn't the West. It's only a few years old, and they couldn't come up with a politically correct name for it, so they just named it after its address. It was nice--to be honest, I'm pretty museumed out, but it was very well laid out and presented, and it was a relief to see that sort of art. There was a jazz exhibit that looked interesting, but I couldn't get in for free and was tired so I didn't go. Went to the gym, didn't jog for long because that's the last test for my back, but worked out anyway, then at night we went to see Tosca at the Bastille Opera. The building is not very nice--very modern, huge, I kind of felt like I was in a more upscale Q/Gund Arena, at least outside the theater. The opera was great, although it took me a while to get into it. Opera is very slow-moving.
Also. I probably mentioned this before, but if I didn't, Parisian audiences clap like there is no tomorrow. Or I guess they'll clap until tomorrow. Seriously. 3 plays, an opera, and a ballet, no curtain call has been less than 5 minutes. And they all get in this creepy rhythm after they've clapped for a few minutes. I think it was bad in Berlin too, but at least they didn't fall into the rhythm. So now if you ever hear people complaining that Clevelanders will give a standing ovation at the drop of a hat, know that a) at least the excesses happen in Paris too, and b) it's less painful to sit (or stand) through a standing ovation than suffer through the creepy 5 minute long Parisian applauses.
GO CAVS! I wake up every other morning and turn on the computer feeling like grades are out or I'm gonna find out if I got into a play, waiting nervously for the score to appear.
| | |
| The end of the program is fast approaching and, like any end of term, it's pretty jam packed. First off, it's been a while since I gave you photo links. So here you go. I added a few photos to this one: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=81811&id=508013548#/album.php?page=2&aid=81811&id=508013548
And this one's new. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=84823&id=508013548&l=444679a8cb
This week has been pretty full too, when I wasn't lounging on the couch doing nothing. My back was significantly better on Friday, although not perfect. It's still not perfect, but it's close. I refrained from working out yesterday, but other than that it's fine. So weird! Anyway, Friday morning I went to Gare du Nord to meet Katie and Sarah. We walked to their hotel, dropped off the luggage, hit up a boulangerie for breakfast, then headed to le Marais. We poked around the vintage shops and saw the 16 euro pastrami sandwich place, then went to Notre Dame and waited in a very long but incredibly fast-moving line to get in. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we didn't mind waiting. We got sandwiches at another boulangerie and ate them on a bridge looking at the Hotel de Ville, then we went to l'Arc de Triomphe. I had actually never been, and it's definitely worth a visit. Especially since it's free. We walked down the Champs Élysées a bit, but it's so full of people that it was hard to manuever and we ended up catching a metro 2 stops to see Place de la Concorde and the Louvre pyramid, then we hung out in the Tuileries for a bit. After that I was dead, since I got back kinda late the night before, so Katie and Sarah went to the Eiffel tower (and apparently saw the police arrest about 30 trinket sellers), while I went home for a bit. We met up in the evening and I took them chez moi quickly, where Sarah met and proceeded to fall in love with le chat, then we ate dinner in a little bistro nearby, which was lovely. We ate outside, and the days are so long here now, there was still a bit of light at 10.
The next day we met at 9:30 at the Musée D'Orsay and got in extremely quickly. Go early in the morning--the line is shorter and faster. We wandered around there for a bit--I finally got up to the 5th floor, which is all impressionism. It was like wandering through Mom's impressionist coloring book. Lots of fabulous Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Degas, etc. After that we went to the CUPA neighborhood to eat in the Jardin de Luxembourg, but it started raining, so we sat under a cover near a fancy, pay to play playground. We window shopped a bit in the Latin quarter, then headed back to a café near Sarah and Katie's hotel, as at least I was in desperate need of a rest and some caffeine. Sarah (and Amy)'s friend Adrienne came by--she had been studying in Toulouse this semester and was in Paris to see her mom off, so met up with Sarah. We spent a couple hours in the cafe, then headed up to Montmartre. We saw/climbed up to/avoided the bracelet guys at the Sacré Coeur, wandered a bit, the split up. Katie got her portrait done, then we ate dinner at a restaurant nearby--if you get off at the Sacre Coeur metro stop but turn the opposite direction from the hill to Montmartre, you find cheap and decidedly non-touristy restaurants. So we ate there for some Katie Lia time.
Sunday I met up with Katie and Sarah to eat a goodbye crepe. It was legit hot, for the first time since I've been here. I bought some new cheap sunglasses (my awesome red ones broke--I'll try to have them fixed when I get back. I love them.) and then headed to the library to do some research. The line was long, as usual, and after I had waited maybe 10 minutes an announcement came on saying it was going to be a 3-hour wait. So I left. I went to a cafe near me with free wi-fi and sat in the sun with a cranberry juice (with an ice cube!) and did internet research instead. Much more pleasant.
Monday we had class with Scott where we talked about the Baudelaire poems we had read. I knew disappointingly little seeing as I had taken a poetry class with Scott before. The poems are just lovely, though. After class Claire and I went to the library to work on our dubbing presentation and got yelled at/given the evil eye by French students for not whispering. Apparently you're not supposed to work in groups there. At night I found a televised opera--it was Orlando Paladino by Haydn, and it was gorgeous and hilarious. There were subtitles but I still had no idea what was going on. One guy was dressed as a pirate, there was a short Asian woman in a military-type jacket and short skirt and lace-up boots who pulled a bridal veil out of her messenger bag, there was a guy hacking a stuffed rabbit to death...crazy stuff.
Today we didn't have to get up early for Jérôme's class! Yay! We had a walking tour around the palais royale, but it was chilly and raining and Jerome kept complaining. We did too, but it was more silently. A couple of us ate Chinese food for lunch, then we had Isabelle's class where we have our dubbing presentation that went quite well. We opened with this quote that we found in one of the books:
"The meanest man in the world was the guy who said, 'I'm goin' home now, and if dinner ain't ready, I'm gonna beat my wife. And if it is ready, I ain't gonna eat it.' In the film biz, 'dubbing' is the wife."The next presentation was on cheese, so we got to eat cheese. Best presentation yet. In Thomas's class, I was totally on a role with ministers (Xavier Darcos = national education, Valérie Pecresse = minister of higher education, François Allègre = socialist who will replace Pecresse) and dates (death penalty was abolished in 1981 in France). Which was nice, because I do actually put in some time for that class, but it doesn't often seem to pay off while in class. Tomorrow's the opera, Thursday is a super long day, with Jérôme's class from 9-10:30ish, Scott's final from 11-12:30, and Isabelle's class from 1:30-3:30. A plus tard.
| | |
| Salut. Just in case you were wondering, I think the world is conspiring for me to never again go to the gym. At least not this week. Yesterday morning I was pretty much dead, and then this morning, literally as I was getting dressed to go to the gym, my lower back started hurting badly. As in, can't stand up straight and walk badly. I swear, I did NOTHING. I was just putting on gym shorts. WTF? So now I'm on the couch updating xanga instead, and hoping to high heavens that this goes away soon. Especially because Katie and Sarah come tomorrow.
But up until this morning things were going quite well. I can't believe it's already Thursday. Monday I went to the gym, we had class and then I went to the library for the 2nd time all term. I only had to wait in line for half an hour this time, and I managed to find a seat at a table and not be relegated to the floor. I was slightly productive--took a few dubbing notes, found some books for my paper on nationalism through language (like laws against englishization of French), and worked on my paper for Scott. This library is ridiculous unwelcoming, though. Besides having to wait in line to get in, there's also a line for the bathroom, and if you haven't already seen on Facebook, the toilet paper is outside the stalls. "To prevent vandalism." Except you go inside the stalls, and there's still vandalism everywhere. And what type of vandalism is particular to toilet paper dispensers? It makes absolutely no sense. The library is fairly quiet, given the amount of people there, but then they rudely interrupt you over a PA system to ask you, in French and English, to turn off your cell phone so as not to disturb everyone else. Wasn't disturbed till that came on. Thanks.
Tuesday was our super long day of class. Jérôme's class went over by half an hour and we still didn't fit in all the presentations. We talked about Marcel Duchamp's "The Fountain." http://cultblender.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/duchamp_fountain.jpg Art? Not sure. Then Shannan sent me this: http://lolvantgarde.blogspot.com/2007/11/marcel-duchamp-fountain-1917.html Hilarious? Absolutely. In our 4 hour break, I went to a nearby café and worked on my paper, then hung out in the gardens with a few Carls and ate lunch and had Claire french-braid my hair. She had been dying to since Berlin. After classes Shannan and I went to the other English bookstore on Ile Saint Louis, Librairie Canadienne. It is indeed Canadian. It is also packed even more densely than Shakespeare and Co. There was barely room to move. I've never seen such an enormous quantity of books in such a tiny space. I bought Absolute Friends by John Le Carré because I thought I had left the book I'm currently reading on the plane (also, because I really want to read it). Then I found my book, so I'll finish that one first ("Stupeur et Tremblements," a gift from Scott for interviewing Language Associate candidates) then do the Le Carré. I got home and had half an hour to relax and eat before leaving for the Rokia Traoré concert. She's a fabulous Malian singer who came to Carleton in Februrary and is now touring around the world, I guess. I and about 8 others had standing room seats, which was great because it's dancing/moving type music, but 3 1/2 hours standing after a long day just about killed me, and I fell into bed when I got home.
Yesterday I was still drained when I woke up, so I hung out at home, watched tv, did dishes, relaxed. It was lovely. It was also lovely outside, incidentally. We had class at Jérôme's gallery-to-be and watched lots of videos. One was a panorama taken from a Ferris wheel for about 6 minutes. Just around and around. One was 18 minutes of shots of the city of Chicago. One was a person reading from War of the Worlds accompanied by a lot of little dots of color on the screen. One was a text of Leo Tolstoy accompanied by slow pans across landscapes. Ahh, Art. Our discussions over whether or not it was art and what the value was were quite interesting, though. After class I read in the park for a bit, since it was so beautiful. I had my internship interview at 8, which I think went pretty well, and now it's out of my hands. It turns out it's only a part-time internship, so I'd have time for a job if I wanted/found one. After the interview, Monia and I went to do a few errands and pick up pizza at this adorable Italian restaurant 2 minutes away. It's run by a Neapolitan with an extremely strong Neapolitan accent in French, and I pulled out my Italian to use on him. Except that I can't speak Italian any more. Well, you know what I mean. Ça devient français. Except, when I get in Italian mode, my Italian is still better than my French. I'm just so in French mode right now that it's difficult to flip the switch. So we had delicious authentic pizza.
Today I don't have many plans. Maybe go to the library, maybe see a movie (apparently Star Trek is really good. Seriously), probably go out and do something with Ian, if I can move. Then Katie and Sarah tomorrow. Again, if I can move. Merde.
| | |
|
