Vive la greve! Actually, don't.

Hey cyberspace, remember when I used to update like every day? In other words, I apologize for not keeping you up to date on my fabulous Parisian life; I don't really have a good excuse for my slacking other than that I've been very busy watching smart people parades. And by smart people parades, what I mean is la greve (cue dramatic music, as heard in urgent news updates etc.)

Since the beginning of the school year professors all over France have been on greve (strike), because...well, because of a lot of reasons I, not being French, don't understand. What I get out of it is that the government doesn't support research for the sake of research, valueing solid results a little too much and banishing whoever doesn't get enough of said results to teach. Which in itself is a big fat injustice, because teaching is in no way less difficult, necessary or noble than research. Anyway, as the French say, the government fait les betises (does dumb shit), and they've finally had enough. And in France when people have had enough, their first reaction is to manifester. So for several weeks now the professors, students, and pretty much anyone else with a taste for rebellion and nothing better to do has been marching through the streets with signs, chanting, singing, shouting (and disrupting my bus route because apparently Blvd. Montparnasse is the place to greve), and attracting a lot of policemen in full riot gear. I think they're required to put it on whenever anyone is manifesting, even if said manifesters are a bunch of latin and greek specialists from the Sorbonne. The other day Emily and I walked from Reid Hall to my house and the entire route (basically from Boulevard Raspail all the way past Les Gobelins) was lined with grevistes. They had signs which I think were trying to use the word fac (university) in place of fuck. I'm sure someone (from monde anglophone, no doubt) thought it was clever, but I didn't actually get it.

Another thing particular to the French system of greve-ing is that, although a professor might be on greve, that doesn't always stop them from coming to class. When they do come to class, however, they will proceed to teach you not about childhood in literature or whatever their given topic is, but about the greve itself. Judging by the reactions of the students in my Paris III class when the prof walked in on the first day and asked "So have you all been informed about the greve?" it's pretty common occurance, not to mention an annoying one. There are also some professors teaching "alternative classes"--same time, same place, different subject, and somehow even though they're on greve that's okay. Which I totally don't get. I also don't really understand what French students do when, like now, their professors are on greve for more than three weeks into the beginning of the semester. And now it's February vacation. And honestly, the semester's not that long so chances of making it up are fairly slim. Luckily Reid Hall has arranged things (to the best of it's abilities, anyway) so that we can all take most of our classes there.

Speaking of Reid Hall, I watched the most amazing(ly bad), unnecessarily sexual and gratuitously violent film I have EVER seen in my life the other day--La Reine Margot, based on the novel by Dumas which I obviously then had to go and read because it was just too awesomely ridicule to pass it up. I've been reading like crazy lately, which is probably why I've been getting nothing else productive done.

I have, however, been on two walking tours in Paris where I had "les vestiges" of the middle ages pointed out to me by our tour guide/professor Laurent, who is much more comprehensible when he has a time limit and can't blather for hours on end. One of the tours ended on rue Mouffetard right by my house, which was cool. Dumas also mentions rue Mouff in La Reine Margot, proving that it is in fact useful for something other than delicious crepes and wasting all my time on.

What else have I done? Well, I went to Lyon where I rode a huge ferris wheel and pissed off the workers by spinning the cage as fast as possible. We also saw an amazing basilica, some cobble-stoney streets and a huge and magnificent marche on the river banks with everything from fruit and flowers to fish heads. And other things that don't necessarily start with the letter F, but you know, the F ones were the best. Valerie is still in the hospital so this week involved a lot of Molly-cooking-for-herself. Which means I ate nimchows twice, but that wasn't even my idea so I cannot be blamed. We tried to go to the chateau de Vincennes which is apparently really cool, but we watched some really bad movies and were generally idiotic instead.

My life is pretty uneventful, but I'm leaving for Venice and Florence tomorrow, so that's all about to change. Maybe not though, since my objective on this trip is mainly to eat as much as I possibly can. Get ready for myriad horrendous photos and stories of craziness when I get back.

PS - I had the best dream of my LIFE in French the other night--I was Marguerite de Valois (too much Dumas before bed, I know) and Valerie was Catherine de Medicis and she kept trying to get me to call Guise (on my cellphone, because they had those in 1572) so I could seduce him for one of her ambitious political schemes. Just thought I'd share that, since I already told everyone I know in Paris, including Valerie.

The French are small, but they were even smaller in the 19th century!

Last Sunday I went to the Musee de la Mode (that's right, the museum of fashion; they have that here) to see an exposition of 19th century fashion. Everything essentially looked like a magnificent, ruffly cupcake with a corset and really skinny sleeves attached. All the gowns (and jewelry, shoes, combs and little doodads including dolls) were originals in amazing condition. And they were all absolutely tiny. Think my height, but more waify than Keira Knightley and corseted to a lung-squeezing, rib-cracking point of skinny that gives me the vapors just thinking about it. Anyway, the expo was gorgeous and, because of our art history cards, free! There was also an area for little kids to try on a mini crinoline, which I totally would have done had there not been scary French people on the alert to judge me. After the expo my friend Kristin and I walked home--from the Champs Elysees to Montparnasse where we finally decided we had to take the bus in order to be home in time for dinner.

Tuesday was my first Litterature et Cinema class which seems good. We started off with La Reine Margot, a novel by Dumas and a film which is basically a lot of visually pleasing sex and violence with some 16th century history thrown in and a heaping side of symbolism involving the color red. Needless to say it was awesome. Later that day was my first art history class, L'Art et societe du moyen-age, with our Star Wars-loving tour guide/professor. We have classes on Tuesdays and visits on Wednesdays, and this Wednesday featured a walk in the Marais where we were shown the "vestiges" of the middle ages. It just so happened that, being in the Marais, amny of them were situated between clubs and bars which Laurent deemed "un peu speciale, quoi." But we saw some fragments of old wall, some half-timber houses, a fabulous bibliotheque and probably the prettiest church ever, l'eglise de Saint Jervais.

And although I am in Paris, the tasty-stuff capitol of the world, sometimes you just have to have a burger. So today we did Breakfast in America for lunch--with an 8 euro formula, how could we not? It's been pretty lovely out for the past few days (especially Wednesday--it was so sunny that the stained-glass windows in Saint Jervais were glowing like crazy) but sadly it's going to rain/snow tomorrow. Obviously when I said that Spring had come to Paris, I meant it was just passing on its way to somewhere like, you know, Florida, where it is a reasonable temperature.

This weekend is our group's excursion to Lyon where we're seeing the old city and a silk museum. Remember that horrendous movie with Keira Knightley where she plays a French silk merchant's wife but has a really awkward American accent? I do, and my god did it suck. Don't ever see it. Okay, I'm done with Keira Knightley references, and this entry.

A lundi, mes chouchous.

PS - OH YEAH! Okay, so apparently the word "chou" does NOT come from the word for cabbage like I thought it did! It comes from chouchote, the word for "teacher's pet" or "favorite." That is so disappointing, isn't it? All this time I thought I was saying "my dear little cabbage-cabbage" and I wasn't. Damnit.

Il fait SUNNY?

Yes that's right readers, spring has come to Paris! At least it did for a few days. Or at least, on Thursday walking around cobblestoney Saint Michel in the sun under an impossibly blue sky, gelato (however disgusting it might have been) in hand, I thought it had. We had a gorgeous few days of clear skies and (gasp!) temperatures of around 50, everything permeated by the smell of spring--which coincidentally is the same as the smell of my apartment, in that it is the smell of cigarettes. My theory is that spring in Paris smells more distinctively of cigarettes because it's finally stopped raining so much, so they stay lit long enough to actually produce a smell at all.

But alas, today it's back to rain/snow/sleeting, so really the short-lived warm spell was nothing but a tease. Sad, because I'm dying to wear something other than boots. Which really means I'm dying to go by obnoxiously colored flats from the cheapo stores around here.

After much hassle and frustration (mostly contre the direction), I have a class schedule. It proves, yet again, that I am as Valerie says, "tres intelligent de debrouiller pour n'avoir jamais des cours" ("smart enough to figure out how to never have class).

Tuesday
9h00-11h00 Litterature et Cinema at Reid Hall
11h15-12:30 Grammaire
17h00-18h15 Art et Societe Medieval
and starting in March 19h00-21h00 - Writing workshop at Shakespeare & Co.

Wednesday
10h00-12h00 - Le Fantastique et Policier dans le Roman Victorien at Paris III Monde Anglophone (taught in English!)
2h00-3h15 - excursions for Art et Societe Medieval

Thursday
11h15-12h00 - Grammaire

So basically I really can't deny what Valerie said.

I'm a little disappointed because the professor of the American Modernism class I wanted to take at Monde Anglophone is now apparently no longer sick, which means I didn't have to switch into the Victorian novel one. However, our professor is AMAZING. He's an adorable little French man who speaks English with a perfect British accent and is super friendly. Our class is made up entirely of girls, all of whom speak English incredibly well. Kind of disappointing since I was hoping to feel justified in how good my French isn't after hearing them bumble around in English. But like I said, they speak amazingly well, one of them with an Irish accent. Not sure where that came from, but it's adorable and I'm jealous.

I dropped my literature class at Paris III, L'Enfant au pays des adultes, because it a) was not as cool as I thought, b) had WAY too many people in it for me to ever open my mouth c) was smack in the middle of Friday afternoon which is just ridiculous and d) I couldn't understand what hte prof was saying half the time because she talked way too quietly. I have enough issues understanding what French people are saying, I don't need to throw not-being-able-to-actually-hear-them issues into the mix. But my schedule is fine now, and I'm in France, which is the point. I'll take real classes when I get back to Hamilton.

Thursday Leah and I went to the Musee de Cluny, the museum of the middle ages, and got in for free with our art history student cards. I love things that are free. We saw the unicorn tapestries, plus a bunch of other tapistries (including one featuring the knight with the hugest butt ever) and then we learned how priests make spaghetti and brush their hair. Not really--there were all these artifacts that kept being referred to as lithurgical, including a collander and a comb, and since there weren't descriptions we had to decide for ourselves what they were used for. And that's what we came up with, regardless of how much sense it doesn't make.

Leah, Ellen and I also went on another adventure to the ghetto (which is not really very ghetto at all) to buy duffle bags for our trip to Florence. We found a store selling them for 7euros, and we took the woman completely and utterly by surprise by walking in and announcing that we wanted not one, but THREE of her crappy bags that will probably (read as: most certainly) fall apart after one use, of not before then.

People are coming over soonly to hopefully make sweet potatoe fries and valentines, and tomorrow may or may not involve going to see an exhibition of crinolines. Yes, that's what I said. Crinolines.

I love France.