Thanksgiving in Paris

There is actually an American “grocery store” (I use quotes because this phrase usually conjures the image of a large store, but this was more like a boutique) called Thanksgiving in Paris. There was a surprising number of Parisians shopping there, but it had all the necessary cooking items, but for a price. Somehow, I conned my way into Turkey responsibilities, and I also decided to pay for most of the necessary ingredients (only so I could get the cash back from the center).
Luckily we were cooking at the home of Emmanuel’s (my French conversation assistant) Saintly family who had a professional kitchen for massive cooking and were incredibly friendly. Her father and I immediately launched into conversation when I recognized and commented on his photography collection: this included a photo of a young Orson Welles and an amazing photo of Ezra Pound and the cage he was kept in during the war. He also helped me choose the best translation of Dangerous Liaisons (a book highly recommended to me by Emmanuel) and their twelve-year-old daughter, Gabriel, a wonderful pianist. Unfortunately Emmanuel’s parents had to leave for cousin’s boyfriend’s rock concert. They live in this beautiful Belleville apartment, complete with exposed wood beam ceilings, and a fantastic library. Sylvie, the director of our Paris program, whose house I went to retrieve the wine and the turkeys, had another interestingly awesome home.
Justin, our supposedly fearless head chef, came so late that my workload had already been completed. We had to edit our menu, but still had enough to feed our crowd of 17. The pictures of the gathering will be posted, and they inevitably will include the food. It was also illustrate how much wine was provided and how Emmanuel rolls about a cigarette every 3 minutes (without filters).
The worst problems of the night were a spilled pumpkin pie (onto Niki) and Lynn’s allergic reaction to the surviving pie.

Barcelona Weekend

Ecola, Katie, Lynn, Niki and took off for a weekend in Barcelona, a city of even later nights and earlier mornings than Paris (and that is saying a lot). Upon arrival, there were immediate problems as we had arrived too late to take the public transit into the city, and too early to move into the chosen hostel. However, we were lucky enough to find a Hostel off of the famous and lively Las Ramblas. After dropping off our stuff we headed out to an apartment/bar, hidden away in Barri Gøtic. Lynn doesn’t believe this, but it was Sherlock Holmes themed and was very intricately and caringly decorated. Lynn and Katie were in dire need of sleep, so they left earlier but promptly got lost. This was not a good thing: they did not have a phone and did not know the city. Luckily, they found their way back, and all was well (except for the creepy man who was intent on coming through the wall to attack Katie and bunk bedding above the kick happy Ecola). We all survived the night, except for Lynn who could not wake up and just switched beds to avoid attacks. We moved to the new Hostel, which was livelier and cleaner, and met up with a bunch of UofC students from other study abroad programs including Bex, Anita, Annie Margret, Tim, and Rico.
Ecola, Lynn, Tim, Rico and I split off and formed our own tour group of the city. Ecola was alpha dog, and served as guide. First, we found our way to the Picasso Museum that specializes in his earlier works, which is a perfect before going to the Paris Picasso Museum that specializes in his cubist works. The highlight here was his crazy sketches from his childhood and his study of the Vélåazquez’s Las Meninas Ecola was an ideal guide for this museum, being an artist herself. She corrected me in pointing out that it is actually the shadowy figure of José Nieto that is the focus of Picasso’s interpretation of this painting.
After Picasso, we headed to a tapas lunch and the Cathedral de Barcelona (photos on the website). We then went to The Arc de Triomf (present in many photos) and the Parc de la Ciutadella where we met the Godfather of Ducks, and a duck who would rather fall down a ledge than fly (there were an unusual amount of flightless birds in Barcelona). We explored this area for a while: played soccer with the local kids, found hollow bushes and told far too many Mitch Hedberg jokes. That night we went to this crazy circus style bar called La Fire. There were creepy old signs; a giant devil and most importantly there were swings.
The last day in Barcelona was our designated Goudi day, but we ended up only going to Sagrada Familia. The exterior looks like it is the result of an ADD architect who never actually drew a plan. There are huge spires in front of gigantic stained glass with tiny knights dotting the perimeter. Overall, this building can be described by one adjective: Gaudy.
We spent the rest of the evening walking around that area of the city, watching a bit of a soccer game, going to the bull fight ring, sending off Rico and Tim and of course, and once again far too many Mitch Hedberg jokes. Working our way back to the Arc de Trompf, we met Katie and Niki who were in tears after sending off Annie Margaret, Anita and Bex. They were joyous to later find that Annie Margret had missed her bus, so they joined us for dinner. Ecola, Lynn and I did some quick emergency shopping (I had no long sleeve shirts and they required them all over this city). We then had yet another awesome tapas dinner, only interrupted by a bunch of hero costumed British guys. We then decided to stay up until our early morning flight. Only Ecola and I made it, thanks to some Sangria and Lynn’s Mitch Hedberg mp3s.

Amiens

Today was the second major outing with the group, and this time we knew to go to sleep earlier the night before. We caught an incredibly crowded RER to Gare du Nord where we met Stephan. From there we caught our train to Amien (a town I, as well as numerous other people, including Parisian, didn’t even know existed until now).
The more time I spend with Stephan, the more I like him. He told us we were a good group (even after a rowdy lunch where he and Ecola played the adult to keep us under control) and told us stories of “bad” groups. His most quotable comments were that “beer is for breakfast, cocktails for lunch, whiskey for dinner,” “who is this professor?” and “I have to take a picture because my wife will not believe we walked this far to see a broken bridge.”
These comments were interspersed throughout the day, but we started the day out with a tour of the Amien Cathedral. This is a Gothic structure that looks very much like a very large Notre Dame. It was built because of the relic it houses of St. John the Baptists skull (which is still on display inside). The oddities of this building are plenty, but most noteworthy amongst them is that one of the stain glassed windows is actually an upside-down pentagram, there are no books in the hands of the statues of the pre-Catholicism prophets, and under all the statues are the only real examples of artistic freedom: tiny “stupid people.”
After the tour we had the aforementioned lunch, a quick walk around, an entertaining carousel ride, then a fun but long walk to nowhere featuring a hilarious Juewai and Justin, then finally a long ride back featuring M.A.S.H. I am marrying Katie, we are having 12 kids, live in a Shack, we have an elephant and a tricycle.

Preview and Apology

I haven't updated in a while, thanks to a hellish week of work and travel plans, so I am apologizing. However, what you have to look forward to is this:
1.) A weekend in Barcelona, one overwhelmingly awesome city with some awesome people (complete with many pictures)
2.) A day trip to beautiful Amiens with the group, the Professor and Stephan (with much photographed drunken revelry)
3.) A week in exotic Marrakech (with far too many photos)
4.) A second appraisal of Parisian Nightlife with Halloween pictures
Same Sage Channel, Same Sage Time, Same Sage Site!

Tour with the Professor

The Professor (sorry, I can’t type that without thinking about Harpo’s Professor in Animal Crackers) took us to his home area of… PLACE DE LA CONTRESCARP! Yes, exactly where I did my Moveable Feast week before classes started.
Yes, he even took us to Hotel Grand Ecoles to tell us that it is the best place to stay in Paris. He was very impressed when I told him about my pre-class week, and we had a great talk about the area. I like this guy, he actually reminds me of Andy. He took us by an Old Roman Coliseum around the corner from the Hotel, Hemingway’s house and the old city wall around Paris. He then took hungry people to Le Volcon, but I had just eaten so I sadly did not join them.

Manchester United Game

Manchester United
After class, a large group of us rushed off to a Manchester United versus Paris’s Lille Football game at Staid du France (right around where the riots started out). Yili, Michelle, Sara and I split off from the group to drop by St. Michele for Falafel and some Chinese food. Sara was a lifesaver and carried my bag back to the dorm.
En route to meet Courtney at Chatelet, we came across some stereotypical Manchester United fans: shaved head/bald males of varied ages, missing teeth, covered in denim, drunkenly yelling obscenities and soccer chants at passersby.
We got out of there and found Courtney at Chatelet and road up north. When we arrived, we were greeted by an unprecedented (at least in my experience around Paris) show of Police force. Many battalions of riot gear clad police glared us at, after that we met the police on horses, then finally we got into the gates where we were frisked.
We got to the game where sad Brits notified us that they were not serving real beer (for obvious reasons), but most of the ManU fans were drunk and dangerous enough already. We didn’t heed their warning, and we bought some awful non-alcoholic beers for far too much money.
The chants were hilarious, when the Parisian area started a wave that went full round their end of the field the Man U fans stopped it with their version of flicking people off and a resounding “FUCK YOU!” I couldn’t understand most of the chants, they yelled them while balancing on the ledge and pounding the fences, but when Paris scored their winning goal, the ManU guys were booing and throwing their stuff onto the field.
The Yili, Michelle and Courtney were all cheering for our Parisians, but I unfortunately choose to go with the losing team, ManU.

Nietzsche is a Negative Nancy

After seeing Walküre, I spoke with Andy, one of my favorite Opera companions. He and I were discussing why directors do such dramatic things to productions of Wagner. He said that this is done because they don’t want people to be sucked into the Wagnerian ideology: his lies about heroism and redemption.
We both agreed that anything that distracts or detracts from the drama should be excluded. However, do not see the harm in his romanticized vision of heroics. Yes, they have little to no place in reality, but for me deception and escapism is very different.
I wish I had saved the conversation however, because I see now that attempting to reproduce it from memory does it no justice.