C'est la lose!

Well this week has been a bummer. As the French would say, "C'est la lose!" A great expression because it's got an English word (lose) that's been completely french-ified. Basically it's like saying, "It's the worst!" or "What a drag!" and it's another great expression I picked up at frisbee. Gotta love those girls.It has been "la lose" because I really haven't been doing anything besides homework this week. But after all I suppose this is STUDY abroad and I wouldn't want, say, my parents to think that I'm just here HANGING OUT. God forbid. Anyways, so I figured this would be a good time to talk a little bit about my academic life here. I'm taking four classes -- three through Sarah Lawrence and one through a French university (Paris VII Diderot), although honestly you might as well add "Discovering Paris 101: City Life in the City of Light" to that course list, because living in a city and absorbing everything it has to offer (or trying to!) is at least the equivalent of a full-time course. Except that the homework is more fun.
Basically, I'm taking a French language class, an architecture class, and a theatre class through my program. All my classes here are in french, and they all meet once a week for two hours (except for the French class which meets twice a week for two hours and the architecture class which has extra field trips!). However on top of that, Sarah Lawrence has these things called tutorials (or "tutorats" en francais) that mandate a half-hour individual meeting with each professor once every other week. Add those into my schedule and I'm in class quite a bit! I must say that while the tutorial system is sometimes annoying if you don't have questions, usually I have to prepare a one-page paper for each session in which I can summarize what I've learned and/or ask any questions that I have, and on top of that we can discuss any big papers I'm working on. This week I had three papers due -- one on the architecture of the Louvre (5 pages), one on causal expressions for French (4 pages), and one on an analysis of a monologue from Corneille's play Horace (7 pages). So basically I've been writing a lot and since I am in Paris after all, I naturally left them all to the last minute so I could do things like go to the movies last week and eat out and so I could travel in Burgundy this weekend, which was such a good decision! However in spending Monday, Tuesday, AND Wednesday now churning out papers, I'm getting ready for this week to be over.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about writing papers here is that access to a library is incredibly difficult. It's not because there aren't plenty of them, it's just that each one I've come across has something that makes it a huge pain in the butt to deal with. First I tried the Bibliothèque Saint-Genviève, an amazing old building next to the Pantheon that my program got us library cards to and gave us a tour. However, this lovely library houses 95% of its collections below ground, and getting a book involved looking it up on the computer, swiping a card, and the waiting 20 minutes. Of course, then I couldn't figure out how to return the book and so I was THAT PERSON asking the information desk like the most basic question ever. Also this library allows you only 2 breaks while you are there -- for bathrooms and everything -- and you have to swipe your card each time you go out. One break is 20 minutes and the other is an hour, and if you are 1 minute late the library won't let you back in. Craziness! Obviously, that system wasn't going to work for me and so I went on to discover new and better libraries.

Bibliothèque Saint-Geneviève! What an amazing interior, in fact it's about as user-friendly as it is ugly. That is to say, not at all.

The next one I tried was the library at the Centre Pompidou -- which had the two criteria I was now looking for -- books above ground and a brochure in English. Success! Also free wifi (not the case at Saint-Geneviève) and a travel time of 7 minutes! I went in one day and was absolutely enchanted: you can learn languages for free in special booths! Everything is well-organized and brightly lit! There are nice librarians who don't look scary! However, all good things must come to an end and unfortunately many other people have also discovered how awesome this library is and so it gets packed. There are only 2100 spots and after they're all filled...bummer for you. Gotta wait outside in a line that gets to be hundreds of people long during prime hours. Luckily there's a webcam online so you can check out what the line looks like before going over there...but still. Not exactly convenient when you need to work. Also it closes at 9:45. What kind of self-respecting college student gets any work done before 9:45 pm? Come on.

The Bibliothèque Publique d'Information at the Centre Pompidou. So modern!

Another thing that should be said about both the aforementioned libraries is that you can't check books out. Yep. Not allowed. So if you want to do research, you have to stay there until everything is done because you can't just take it home and do it in your bed or at your own desk with a cup of tea in your sweatpants. Makes me miss America...we love you Ben Franklin!

MY HERO.

Anyway, so the requisite for the third library was one that would let me check books out (starting to feel a little bit like Goldilocks and the three libraries right about now...), because sometimes a girl wants to do work late at night in her pjs at her own gosh-darn desk. Apparently there aren't very many of those in Paris, but I did manage to hear about one called the Bibliothèque Forney which is an arts library located pretty close to my house which has a section of books you can check out! So I meandered over there yesterday and encountered my fair share of french bureaucracy (but what else is new. C'est la lose!). So I walked in and said I wanted a library card. The woman made me fill out a form and then asked me if I had a photo. Nope, not on me. So she told me to head on up and make a copy of whatever form of i.d. I had and we could use that. Sooo I went upstairs (the library is inside an old castle!) and found the copy machine. But ohooo you have to buy a card to use the copy machine, of course. So eventually I made my copy and then briefly checked out the library catalog to see if they had any books on the topic I was researching (the Haussmannization of Paris). Yes! They did! However nowhere on the page was there listed any way to actually find them in the library. Hmmm. So I went up and asked a librarian who kindly told me that I had to fill out a card and bring it to another desk where they would take it and go find the book for me and bring it back to me. Jeez louise. Not even as hi-tech as Saint-Genevieve where I could at least do the whole thing on the computer. So I filled out the forms and went downstairs to hand the woman my papers BUT OF COURSE I needed to have my card done first. So, I went back downstairs, gave the woman my photo and she made me a card, which literally consisted of her sticking this photo on a piece of plastic and hand-writing my name on it in Sharpie. I'm sorry, are we in the 1800s?! So once that was done I went upstairs, gave the woman the papers AND my card and she went and got the books. Then I went back downstairs and checked them out. What a hassle.

Inside the Bibliothèque Forney

Outside the Bibliothèque Forney. No joke.

I guess I'm just extremely spoiled by the libraries I have had growing up with and especially the one at Grinnell where everyone speaks English (well, no surprise there), where there are thousands of documents at my disposal (above ground! where I can see them!) and it's 5 minutes away and stays open til 1 am. THE BEST. Also they serve milk and cookies every night during finals week and there are big treehouse things you can study in and beanbag chairs and little individual study nooks where you can leave your computer out and it won't get stolen.

Burling Library in Grinnell, IA. Home sweet home.

Studying in the towers! Many a long evening has been spent there...

Also this whole thing has made me realize how important "efficiency" and "convenience" are for me (and all Americans), especially in terms of doing work and studying, and how that's just different over here. Also the idea of a "library" means something completely new here which I'm just not familiar with. And after all, while writing papers may be "la lose", learning new stuff about the library system here and doing research for my papers isn't. And I got to see so many new cool places that only locals really see, and that in itself is worth the hassle of getting cards and waiting in line and not understanding the french equivalent of the Dewey Decimal system. Although to be honest I wouldn't even know if it was the same because I couldn't tell you how that works in America either.

Foncer sur

The first week I arrived in Paris, I was walking around with my roommate when we came across the strangest thing: we couldn't cross the street because of a huge crowd of rollerbladers skating down the street -- there must have been thousands of them! We waited a good ten minutes for all of them to pass, and even though it appeared that the whole street had been shut down to let them pass (no cars, nothing) we didn't dare to step out into the street because they were coming so quickly and there were so many of them that it was pretty much as if there were still cars driving by. Anyway, I managed to get a glimpse of a t-shirt that read "Rollers et Coquillages" Staff, and so immediately proceeded to go home and Google it. Rollers is the french term for rollerblading, so for example if you wanted to say you rollerskated you would say "J'ai fait du roller." And coquillages is the french word for seashell! I have no idea what that has to do with anything, but bear with me. Anyways, so I discovered that every Sunday, this group organizes a rollerskating outing in Paris! It's basically a three hour "hike" type thing, from one end of Paris to the other, on rollerskates. Now before I go any further, I must admit that I have this weird fantasy of myself being really good at rollerskating. Last year, I bought myself a pair online (white with pink wheels!) and proceeded to practice around Grinnell for about a month before moving on to something else, but I've never quite lost the dream of being in roller derby or something of the sort à la Ellen Page in Whip It or casually being able to rollerskate to class and walk in, skates slung over one shoulder. So basically, I thought I could take on this rollerblading thing no problemo, and even convinced my two good friends to join me.

The picture from the first time I saw Rollers et Coquillages!

So we showed up at the meeting place, conveniently located outside a skate shop where you can rent rollerblades for 9 euros. Excellent. We rented our blades and immediately upon putting them on I re-realized just how difficult it is to...you know...balance/stop/control oneself on rollerblades. One of my friends had apparently skated a lot as a kid and knew what she was doing, while the other one had literally never skated before. I'm somewhere in between, but with the added hurdle of a lot of pride/this fantasy of being rollerskating-girl-to-the-stars. We halfheartedly practiced our breaking skills for about five minutes before deciding that running into things was most definitely the best way to stop going forward. That will come into play later, I promise. As we were waiting around to get going we got handed free t-shirts from this group raising awareness about psoriasis -- my first t-shirt in French! So cool. We put them on and then...we began! Basically the group that organizes this leads a huge pack of rollerbladers (on the website it says that in the summer they can get around 20,000, but I'm guessing that on Sunday there were only a couple thousand) through Paris on a specified route. There are some policemen on rollerblades too who skate ahead and stop traffic/pedestrians so everyone can skate through without worrying about other hazards. So well organized!

About halfway through the journey

My friend and I rollerblading in front of the Eiffel Tower!

Anyways, so things started out great for my friends and I. Besides from the whole not-being able to stop thing (which had yet to be necessary), I was really getting the hang of it and feeling pretty well on my way to becoming a roller derby all-star. Except for the shin splints. And the sweating (who knew? It's exercise!). And the fear/embarrassment of falling at any moment. And then we hit the cobblestones. These would reappear a couple times throughout the journey in various roundabouts in Paris, and let me tell you -- there is nothing more difficult than rollerblading on cobblestones. And then we had to stop -- aka I had to run into curbs/cars/other people before finally figuring out how to sort-of break. And then we had to go down hills -- aka I had to hold onto staff members so I wouldn't get crazy out of control and die. And then up hills -- let me tell you how much my legs hurt today...SO MUCH. And then I was at the end of the group with staff people yelling "Go!" "Push!" "Roule!" (Roll!) at me so that I wouldn't hold back the entire group. And then there was that time where I was going a liittlleee too fast down the hill and grabbed onto a parked car to slow me down while my friend (in an attempt to also stop) literally flung herself onto a car and flopped around like a rag doll before getting up (to the many helpful arms of other, more competent rollerbladers) and yelling "I'm fine! I'm fine!" We laughed about it the rest of the whole three hours. 26 kilometers. From Bastille to Trocadero and back, for those of you who are familiar with Paris. And that is where today's vocab comes in -- foncer sur means pretty much "to crash into" or "to pounce on" in French, both of which I did a lot of during the whole rollerblading experience, much to my chagrin and all of Paris' amusement.
It was, in short, one of the most difficult sporting experiences I've ever had in my life, and I am proud to say that I finished dead last. Yep, last of probably 3000 people -- but the staff members at the back with me laughed about it, gave me a flyer for free lessons (maybe my dreams will come true after all!), and congratulated me on finishing. Then there was the nice man who helped me down the last hill, and the nice lady who showed me how to break. My friends were a little bit astounded that they went along with the whole thing, and so afterwards we treated ourselves to a delicious dinner on the Ile-Saint-Louis and some Bertillon ice cream. And after that, one friend and I went and saw a German film with French subtitles and relished just sitting down for two hours after an exhausting day. All in all, it was a tiring, difficult experience that was totally worth it -- from the time we rounded that corner and saw the Eiffel Tower to the time I made it down a hill myself to the time that I didn't fall on the cobblestones (that was actually two times!). Although my dreams of roller-derbying may have been forever extinguished, I'm really glad I can say that not only have I rollerbladed though Paris, but I rollerbladed for 26 kilometers and FINISHED.

Back / Side

You may be looking at the title of this post and thinking well jeez, I thought the whole point of this blog was to discuss new french vocabulary, learn some new french sayings, and keep Hannah on track, you know. But those words...those are English! And that brings me to the subject of this post -- English in France by way of discussing ultimate frisbee. One of the strange things about being in France is the amount of English words that have slipped into the French language, but have become to ingrained that one may as well be speaking french while saying them. A good example: if you walk into a bar and say "Je voudrais un cocktail" and pronounce cocktail like you would in English, the bartender will look at you funny and have no idea what you're asking for, even though the first three words you used were french. However, if you walk into a bar and say "Je voudrais un cocktail" in your best french accent (making it more like COQUE-tale) then the bartender will smile at you and hand you a martini or whatever it is you specify you would like. One of the weird things about speaking French here is that sometimes I won't know a word and will ask someone to translate for me and it'll turn out that it's the same word in English, just said with a french accent. I'm always a littlleee disappointed when this happens, though. It's like hello, I'm trying to learn a NEW language here! Alas.
Anyways, so the place where this english-ization has come up the most is during frisbee. I joined a club team here and practice with the women on Monday nights and sometimes go to co-ed pickup on Wednesdays, and the people are a real mish-mash of French, British, Australian, ex-pats, and American students studying abroad. Since Ultimate is really an American sport but we happen to be in France, the language that gets spoken is a strange mix of the two. For example, in America, we say "forehand" and "backhand" for the two main throws. In France, they are called "side" and "back." There are a million other little examples of this (my favorite is when they just say "eye contact!" -- which appears to be a phrase used in french made of solely english words), and one of the best parts about going to practice is that I'm constantly picking up on subtle vocabulary differences. Also, it's one of the only times during my week where I am immersed in colloquial french -- not the classroom/formal language of professors, but real, live French people! However the amount of English being spoken is enough that I never feel completely lost in terms of what we're actually practicing. I mean, it's not like these women are "speaking" English, but the words/vocabulary being used are so frequently the same in English ultimate-speak that I'm never that far behind what's going on.

Google Maps view of the Stade Charlety (That little dark-green part of a field on the left is where we practice!)

Also, it's been so nice to meet real French women who love ultimate! Sonya, one of the captains, has been playing ultimate for 15 years and has jerseys from literally all over the world. So far I've seen some from Colombia, Russia, Germany, and Canada. She also has a lovely habit of saying "Namaste" instead of "Bonjour" or "Salut" and then making all the American students (there are 4 of us) practice our "bises" or cheek-kisses with her. SO FRENCH. Also, tonight was the first time I made a joke in French! That's a big deal, because usually I'm just too nervous about what's actually coming out of my mouth to try and be funny, but tonight the timing was right and I was throwing with Bérénice (and man she is ALL about throwing it as hard as she can without any regard for you catching it) and I made a joke about the wind! In french! It was great. She laughed. Also it's awesome to hear cheers of "Allez les filles!" (go girls!) at practice or to take some time to watch the "mecs" (dudes) scrimmage. All in all, I'm really glad I've found a place to play frisbee here not just so that I have a place to run around (so necessary for my mental and physical health) or so that I can keep up my skills (I'm coming for you soon [stickies]!) but also a place where I can hear more French, speak more French and meet more French people, even if it is laced with American ultimate lingo.

Une colline

"Une colline" is the french word for hill. There are a couple of hills in Paris, and, for example, Montmartre is built on one of them. Today, though, I went to Meudon, a suburb outside of Paris which is the highest point around for miles -- in fact it's apparently as high as the second story of the Eiffel Tower. Now Hannah, what were you doing in Meudon, you may be asking yourself. And the answer to that is...speaking English! I got a  job spending about an hour and a half per week hanging out with this 12 year old boy in Meudon and speaking English with him, and today was my first day! I had been out there last week to meet his parents, etc., but today was our first official hang out. His parents were just looking for someone he could talk with once a week to work on his English because, like most language instruction in schools, there's not really that much time set aside where you can practice speaking -- it's mostly comprehension, reading, and writing. So basically I'm just there to hang out with a 12 year old, speak my native language, and get paid for it. COULDN'T BE BETTER.

The observatory of Meudon -- as you can see, we are up quite high on that colline! What a view.

I can get to Meudon from the Gare Montparnasse for approximately 2 euros and 40 centimes and it's a 10 minute train ride. It's incredibly simple to get most places in France thanks to the vast train system. I've taken at least 4 types since I've been here -- the metro, the RER (commuter train), the suburban train, and the TGV (high speed train). Anyway, I showed up at the train station and Samson, the boy, comes and picks me up on his skateboard. This kid is allll about skateboarding, much like I imagine most 12 year old boys are. He lights up when I mention Tony Hawk and asks if he can do an ollie (he can't). From there we pretty much talk about anything and everything. We talked about school and the subjects he likes, we talked about cricket, we talked about cats, we talked about swim team. He took me for a little tour of Meudon and showed me the house where Louis XIV's son, the dauphin, lived. We walked up to the observatory and he showed me his elementary school. While I don't think he understood every word of what I said, I was impressed at the amount of English he knows. His vocabulary is pretty good, and he has a good command of verbs but struggles with the future/past tense (don't we all). He showed me his English notebooks and the work his class did on the World Trade Center. He had a labeled map of the US and a really detailed map of Manhattan, along with a short story about a boy and his sister going to a football game. I showed him Iowa and Virginia and California, which he knew because of Hollywood. He seemed to know the most about New York, which I guess makes sense, seeing as how there are so many relationships between NYC and Paris. He also showed me a set of comic books in English about cowboys and indians, which is hilarious because the French have this very strange obsession with the cowboy/indian theme. The best example is a chain of bars in Paris called "Indiana" -- which serves "Tex-Mex" food and has fake indian headdresses hung up everywhere and pictures of the wild west. Trying to explain to a Parisian that Indiana the state has very little to do with tee-pees and buffalo hunting would be inconceivable, although one day I want to bring in a picture of a corn field and be like, "See people, THIS is Indiana. Not the bluffs/mountains/plains of actual Indian territory!" Someday.

The "Potager du Dauphin" in Meudon - the house that Louis XIV built for his son.

Anyway, after an hour and a half we wrapped things up and I got back to the train station and headed back into the city. I have a feeling that these Friday afternoon "teaching" sessions will be really fun and a great way to interact with real French people. Samson and I talk mainly in English but every now and then there's a moment where I throw in a French word to make sure he understands or he'll use a French word for an English one he doesn't know -- like "colline." While walking up the hill to the observatory today he was trying to explain that Meudon is built on a hill, and so we had to do a couple of hand-gestures/code-switching to figure it out. Being able to have the opportunity to use and help teach English to someone is so great because it allows me to realize things not just about my own language but also my relationship with French. I sometimes get hung up on the fact that I don't know how to say something in French or get frustrated when people can recognize by my accent that I'm not a native speaker and that gets me pretty discouraged sometimes. But something that Samson has already taught me is that it's not embarrassing to be learning a language! It's not awkward if you don't know how to say something, and people aren't going to look down on you if you don't use the correct verb tense. I am not a native French speaker, and so I need to stop expecting myself to sound like one every time I open my mouth. One of the things I love about Europe is that learning other languages is just so common here, and so everyone's a beginner in something -- whether it be their fifth language or their second. The important thing is to try, to smile, and laugh at your own mistakes, because lord knows there will be a lot of them!

Passer une Nuit Blanche

The closest thing the French have to the expression "pulling an all-nighter" is passer une nuit blanche. However, the phrase doesn't have any of the negative connotations that "pulling an all-nighter" does, it simply means that you just stayed up the whole night -- whether to write a term paper or party until dawn (the French apparently don't make a distinction between the two). Yesterday, I had a nuit blanche! Every year, the city of Paris hosts a nuit blanche for the entire city -- where most cultural institutions stay open all night (7pm-7am), the metro and public transport stay open, and they bring in a bunch of cool art expositions and performances for people to see - for free! There were SO many things going on -- from free jazz concerts to performance art pieces based on Prince's "Purple Rain" (yep) to dancing to art exhibits in old churches. My friends and I met up at 10 at the Hotel de Ville and started to explore from there! We had made itineraries based on the Nuit Blanche website and things we had heard about, and headed out into the Marais.

The official poster.

The Marais is the neighborhood I live in, and it's pretty much at the center of Paris. There were a couple of different "hubs" for Nuit Blanch activities, and the Marais was one of them. However as soon as we started walking from the Hotel de Ville is became a madhouse. The streets were just teeming with people -- it was like being at a music festival in Paris, almost, except without the ever-present music playing. But there definitely was that festival atmosphere and everyone seemed to be having a good time. My friends and I realllyyy wanted to see the "Purple Rain" piece, but the line to get into the courtyard where it was on was three blocks long! So instead, we just walked past it and looked in -- basically they were making in rain in this courtyard, putting purple light on it, and giving everyone who came in clear purple umbrellas so they could walk around in it -- how neat is that? We also managed to stop in and see a couple of cool modern art exhibits in various buildings and gardens. However, the Marais was sooo crowded (and it was still early!) so we decided to head up to Montmartre to see what was going on around there.
Montmartre was also hopping, surprise, surprise! It seemed as if all of Paris had come out for this night. We stopped first in this old church and saw an amazing art-installation of what looked like chandeliers covered in quartz crystals. We then trekked on into a gallery that my friend's photography teacher had told them about. It was incredible! There was an installation that this artist did which was a screen (in live time) that drew what it saw in comic-book format, so you could see what you would look like in a comic sketch!

Comic book me!

So awesome. We then stopped into some theatres to watch little artsy films and saw this one where an artist drew birds on a wall in charcoal and then lit the whole thing on fire. Pretty neat. After that, we stopped in to have a snack/drink (it was like 3am) and then we began the long walk back to the Marais. We could have taken the metro for free at this time (!) but Paris only kept 2 lines open and they weren't anywhere near us, so we decided just to walk and enjoy the night and the festivities. I ended up getting home around 4:30 and didn't go to bed until 6 - so I had a true nuit blanche! What an experience. You have to love a city that provides (for free) a whole night of culture. Good work, Paris.