Yesterday I went to the Salon du Chocolat, which is to say, a HUGE CHOCOLATE CONVENTION! Yes, it is for real! There were literally hundreds of stands and stores represented from all over Paris, and there was all manner of free chocolate, and you paid to get in, but then you could browse all the chocolateness!
There were clothes made out of or or sprayed/smeared with chocolate, there were massages given with chocolate, hair waxing stuff made from some sort of chocolate, hot chocolate, chocolate fountains, mousse au chocolat, ice cream, a room decorated with chocolate pastries (HUGE ONES! Probably not real), lots of pastries, macarons (which are really, really good. They're not nuts - that's what I thought when I heard. MacaROANs, not macarOOOns.)
And I bought some stuff. For some of you. Or not. Maybe I'll keep it. I admit, though, that I came out feeling a little bit doozy. Perhaps I ate some chocolates with alcohol? They weren't labelled - just proffered. I took. I don't think I was really drunk, though. :) And I felt a tad sick. I think I'll stay from chocolate for a little bit after all that!
31 October 2006
Salon du Chocolat
Yesterday I went to the Salon du Chocolat, which is to say, a HUGE CHOCOLATE CONVENTION! Yes, it is for real! There were literally hundreds of stands and stores represented from all over Paris, and there was all manner of free chocolate, and you paid to get in, but then you could browse all the chocolateness!
There were clothes made out of or or sprayed/smeared with chocolate, there were massages given with chocolate, hair waxing stuff made from some sort of chocolate, hot chocolate, chocolate fountains, mousse au chocolat, ice cream, a room decorated with chocolate pastries (HUGE ONES! Probably not real), lots of pastries, macarons (which are really, really good. They're not nuts - that's what I thought when I heard. MacaROANs, not macarOOOns.)
And I bought some stuff. For some of you. Or not. Maybe I'll keep it. I admit, though, that I came out feeling a little bit doozy. Perhaps I ate some chocolates with alcohol? They weren't labelled - just proffered. I took. I don't think I was really drunk, though. :) And I felt a tad sick. I think I'll stay from chocolate for a little bit after all that!
There were clothes made out of or or sprayed/smeared with chocolate, there were massages given with chocolate, hair waxing stuff made from some sort of chocolate, hot chocolate, chocolate fountains, mousse au chocolat, ice cream, a room decorated with chocolate pastries (HUGE ONES! Probably not real), lots of pastries, macarons (which are really, really good. They're not nuts - that's what I thought when I heard. MacaROANs, not macarOOOns.)
And I bought some stuff. For some of you. Or not. Maybe I'll keep it. I admit, though, that I came out feeling a little bit doozy. Perhaps I ate some chocolates with alcohol? They weren't labelled - just proffered. I took. I don't think I was really drunk, though. :) And I felt a tad sick. I think I'll stay from chocolate for a little bit after all that!
28 October 2006
Little Red Riot-Hood
So yesterday was two things: 1) the two Paris wards' Halloween party (they don't celebrate Halloween here but there are enough Americans to at least merit a party for the kids), and 2) the one year anniversary of the Paris riots when the two children were killed. Both these things were significant in my life yesterday.
I decided that I could dress up as Little Red Riding Hood for the party, but with my meager resources and borrowed clothing, I ended up in a red shirt, red tights that were sort of fishnets, a black skirt, two braided pigtails, black heels (my only black shoes), a red hat and a red/pink scarf. Now, walking down the street to meet my friend to go into the city for said party, I must have looked a sight in my red and black and fishnets, which didn't even occur to me. A fellow driving by honked and slowed his car enough to grin and wink at me. I thought in despair, "Oh no! Little Red Riding Hood gone prostitute!"
To add to this, upon arriving at the party, someone asked me if I was supposed to be a hooker. I glared at them, and then decided to succumb to my fate. Someone let me use bright red lipstick and dark eyeliner, and then we found some masking tape and put a large letter "A" on my shirt. For those of you who don't know, I was now Hester Prynne of the Scarlet Letter, but I looked far more adulterous than she ever did. And that was me for Halloween. Bear in mind as I continue this story that this is what I wore on the way home, minus the tape which I pulled off.
Now, in various suburbs of Paris including one close to my little suburb, people have been burning various busses in response to this one year anniversary. This was not a safe night to be out alone and there were police EVERYWHERE. So though it wasn't a scary day, it was a tense day that made you more alert to be scared.
We stopped for a crepe at a stand that happened to be on the edge of the street that is filled with sex shops and the several blocks down is the prostitute area of Paris. This was right next to our metro stop, however, so it wasn't as though we were deliberatly asking to be solicited. My friend Esther had been the person in the haunted house who "killed" someone with garden sheares, so she had thick eyeliner, black lipstick, and all black clothes on. I noticed a greasy, oily, and scruffy looking man oogling her, and realized that the sorts of people who are on this street are the ones who are looking for certain things from girls, and indeed he sidled up to talk to her. He kept trying to talk to her but the creperie man (bless his soul!) kept interrupting and glaring at this man. Esther was oblivious that she looked like an easy girl if not a real prostitute due to her get-up.
Finally as we were leaving, the man asked if he could have another minute of Esther's time. Esther, just thinking "Oh, I can speak French!" said yes but the rest of us all said "NO!" and dragged her away from this man, who was rather sketchy. I think we all looked like rather easy girls, being dressed as we were.
On the metro home, the train did not stop in Nanterre (which is where some busses were burned and where those children who died last year lived) and there were so many police in all the stations - and scent dogs, too, even on the train. That was a bit startling. Getting off the train, my carte orange, which is my metro pass that costs a lot of money got stuck in the machine and we couldn't get it out and it's pretty much my LIFE, so thankfully some fellows stoped to help us. One of them looked at Esther, still blackly clad, during this and asked in English, "Do you want to go out?" and she said, "YES!" thinking he was referring to out of the station. But no, upon the lovely retrieval of my life, using bobby pins and eventually my earrings, the three men asked us if we wanted "to go, how you say?, drinking? or eat some crepes?" but we showed them the remainder of our crepes we'd just gotten. We felt a little beholden to them, them having saved my carte orange, but at least Esther said "no" this time.
I decided that I could dress up as Little Red Riding Hood for the party, but with my meager resources and borrowed clothing, I ended up in a red shirt, red tights that were sort of fishnets, a black skirt, two braided pigtails, black heels (my only black shoes), a red hat and a red/pink scarf. Now, walking down the street to meet my friend to go into the city for said party, I must have looked a sight in my red and black and fishnets, which didn't even occur to me. A fellow driving by honked and slowed his car enough to grin and wink at me. I thought in despair, "Oh no! Little Red Riding Hood gone prostitute!"
To add to this, upon arriving at the party, someone asked me if I was supposed to be a hooker. I glared at them, and then decided to succumb to my fate. Someone let me use bright red lipstick and dark eyeliner, and then we found some masking tape and put a large letter "A" on my shirt. For those of you who don't know, I was now Hester Prynne of the Scarlet Letter, but I looked far more adulterous than she ever did. And that was me for Halloween. Bear in mind as I continue this story that this is what I wore on the way home, minus the tape which I pulled off.
Now, in various suburbs of Paris including one close to my little suburb, people have been burning various busses in response to this one year anniversary. This was not a safe night to be out alone and there were police EVERYWHERE. So though it wasn't a scary day, it was a tense day that made you more alert to be scared.
We stopped for a crepe at a stand that happened to be on the edge of the street that is filled with sex shops and the several blocks down is the prostitute area of Paris. This was right next to our metro stop, however, so it wasn't as though we were deliberatly asking to be solicited. My friend Esther had been the person in the haunted house who "killed" someone with garden sheares, so she had thick eyeliner, black lipstick, and all black clothes on. I noticed a greasy, oily, and scruffy looking man oogling her, and realized that the sorts of people who are on this street are the ones who are looking for certain things from girls, and indeed he sidled up to talk to her. He kept trying to talk to her but the creperie man (bless his soul!) kept interrupting and glaring at this man. Esther was oblivious that she looked like an easy girl if not a real prostitute due to her get-up.
Finally as we were leaving, the man asked if he could have another minute of Esther's time. Esther, just thinking "Oh, I can speak French!" said yes but the rest of us all said "NO!" and dragged her away from this man, who was rather sketchy. I think we all looked like rather easy girls, being dressed as we were.
On the metro home, the train did not stop in Nanterre (which is where some busses were burned and where those children who died last year lived) and there were so many police in all the stations - and scent dogs, too, even on the train. That was a bit startling. Getting off the train, my carte orange, which is my metro pass that costs a lot of money got stuck in the machine and we couldn't get it out and it's pretty much my LIFE, so thankfully some fellows stoped to help us. One of them looked at Esther, still blackly clad, during this and asked in English, "Do you want to go out?" and she said, "YES!" thinking he was referring to out of the station. But no, upon the lovely retrieval of my life, using bobby pins and eventually my earrings, the three men asked us if we wanted "to go, how you say?, drinking? or eat some crepes?" but we showed them the remainder of our crepes we'd just gotten. We felt a little beholden to them, them having saved my carte orange, but at least Esther said "no" this time.
27 October 2006
A Night at the Theatre!
For my theatre/cinema class, we're reading some plays and then going to see them. A month or so ago we saw "Le Cid," by Corneille. Last night we went to go see "Cyrano de Bergerac." For those of you who are in the dark, this is a very famous play by Rostand and it's about a man, Cyrano, who has an exceedingly large nose. He is a poet/cadet, and he is in love with Roxanne, but Roxanne is in love with another cadet named Christian. Christian can't write very well, though, so Cyrano writes love letters to Roxanne which Christian signs and delivers, and so Roxanne falls more in love with Christian but it's really Cyrano whose words she loves! Aah! Anyway, so last night we saw it at the Comedie Francaise, which is the acting company instituted by Louis XIV, and they are always the epitome of great theatre.
The play was a very odd rendition, though, and they used little red polka dots thrown in the air for blood when someone got hurt, and odd little films of off-stage action, and they never covered up their sets off stage, so it was very odd. It never really settled on a time period, either. It was good, but in an odd sort of way.
However, some observations about theatres here, or at least the ones I've been in: thy are vey elaborate. There is a floor-level with perhaps 100 seats and then about five balcony levels, all spanning 3 sides of the room except for the stage. There are box seats which remind me of operas, and the balconies are guilded and sculptured and very elaborate. It doesn't really make a difference to the play itself, but it is indeed a very different atmosphere. It makes it somehow more cultured, and it gives you the feeling of being rich and privliged, going to a play in surroundings like this, but at the same time it makes you pay attention to how cultured the French are, since they're always going to plays and while they don't take the sculptures/guilding for granted, they EXPECT it. It makes me want to be more cultured myself.
The play was a very odd rendition, though, and they used little red polka dots thrown in the air for blood when someone got hurt, and odd little films of off-stage action, and they never covered up their sets off stage, so it was very odd. It never really settled on a time period, either. It was good, but in an odd sort of way.
However, some observations about theatres here, or at least the ones I've been in: thy are vey elaborate. There is a floor-level with perhaps 100 seats and then about five balcony levels, all spanning 3 sides of the room except for the stage. There are box seats which remind me of operas, and the balconies are guilded and sculptured and very elaborate. It doesn't really make a difference to the play itself, but it is indeed a very different atmosphere. It makes it somehow more cultured, and it gives you the feeling of being rich and privliged, going to a play in surroundings like this, but at the same time it makes you pay attention to how cultured the French are, since they're always going to plays and while they don't take the sculptures/guilding for granted, they EXPECT it. It makes me want to be more cultured myself.
24 October 2006
Paris at Night
Paris at night is much more the city you picture when you hear "Paris." I had been surprised at how almost un-romantic it was here, but when you go out at night, you really feel like you are in Paris. What clinched it for me was walking across a bridge over the Seine into the Ile de la Cite (the island that has Notre Dame on it) and looking out at the ships and the lights reflected on the water. It is beautiful! And all the sights by night look very different and much more imposing. But you're expecting them to be imposing, and at least at nighttime they fulfill your expectations! There really is something magical about walking around the city at night.
It doesn't feel very dangerous, either - no more than your other average big city. The only difference is the slight fear that, in essence, I don't really speak the language. It's sad - I really think I'm getting worse.
Anyway, the story is that last Friday I finally went up the Eiffel Tower. It was pretty expensive and I was indignant that they didn't have a student discount; I guess I'm too used to museums which let art students in for free or at least for a very very cheap rate. You take a diagonal elevator up to the second floor, which is where the legs of the tower end and it goes straight up. You then stand in a very long line for a very long time (but this is key: it allows for conversation with your fellow friends) and then you go up this amazingly long elevator. Tip: when coming down, don't look down the crack between the platform and the elevator or else you might very well swoon. It was very very cold at the top, but only on the side that the wind was blowing at, but we bore it because it was less crowded. It's fun to identify things from up there. And to have your friends ask you (I don't know why I am the one they always ask things, it's not like I know any more than someone else) "Sariah, what's that over there," only to have me look at say "I have no idea...?" and then they look at you accusingly for letting them down. I know everyone expects me to KNOW everything but it isn't true! It was very fun and very impressive.
Oh and since yesterday I added a few more pictures. You're up to date!
It doesn't feel very dangerous, either - no more than your other average big city. The only difference is the slight fear that, in essence, I don't really speak the language. It's sad - I really think I'm getting worse.
Anyway, the story is that last Friday I finally went up the Eiffel Tower. It was pretty expensive and I was indignant that they didn't have a student discount; I guess I'm too used to museums which let art students in for free or at least for a very very cheap rate. You take a diagonal elevator up to the second floor, which is where the legs of the tower end and it goes straight up. You then stand in a very long line for a very long time (but this is key: it allows for conversation with your fellow friends) and then you go up this amazingly long elevator. Tip: when coming down, don't look down the crack between the platform and the elevator or else you might very well swoon. It was very very cold at the top, but only on the side that the wind was blowing at, but we bore it because it was less crowded. It's fun to identify things from up there. And to have your friends ask you (I don't know why I am the one they always ask things, it's not like I know any more than someone else) "Sariah, what's that over there," only to have me look at say "I have no idea...?" and then they look at you accusingly for letting them down. I know everyone expects me to KNOW everything but it isn't true! It was very fun and very impressive.
Oh and since yesterday I added a few more pictures. You're up to date!
23 October 2006
Pictures!
Lots and lots of new pictures uploaded, with explanations! Click on the link on the right side of the page to see them.
19 October 2006
Tacos
On Tuesday my roommate and I made dinner for Madame. We decided that we should make something American for her, and somehow we both thought of tacos, which aren't really "American," but everybody in the US has had a taco, right? So we began.
First, you have to realize that the oddest things prove very difficult here: for example, locating and affording the ingredients. I spent about 9 euros (maybe 12ish US dollars) on the meat, which was only half a pound of ground beef. The store also only carried one size to choose from. Next, sour cream? No. Didn't happen. We couldn't even begin to imagine what that might be called in French, since it's just a description in English anyway. Cheddar cheese? You'd think in a country famous for its cheeses, it'd have them all but...not so! Only French cheeses, and zero cheddar. We refused to mix more cultures into this taco, so we went without cheese as well. My mom had mailed me a few weeks ago taco seasoning and tortillas, so we were set there since there wasn't any of either at the stores we visited.
We had a grand old time, us roomies plus a friend of mine who doesn't have a roommate who Madame said we coudl invite, in the kitchen preparing the food, listening to music on our computers, and generally bustling about and singing along. It's a good thing Madame didn't come home just then. My roommate wanted to put all the toppings in pretty bowls, but I wanted to be ULTRA un-French and keep them in pans, etc., but she won out on the end - I think Madame would have been shocked to actually see a pan of rice at the table.
We had to show Madame how to put it together (Oh and it was quite funny to watch her try to eat the chips and salsa) and she had a most difficult time eating it with her hands. Poor lady - she ended up scooping the lost toppings onto her fork surruptitiously with her chips after a taco. She was surprised when we kept eating, and we explained that pretty much this was the only course. We DID make dessert but really none of us have dessert every day. So she willingly dug in to yet another, exclaiming to me at one point, "Sariah, how do you keep it all in the, how you say, tortilla!?" and we showed her again how to fold it. She seemed to have fun, though, watching our obvious delight at something we all knew and loved from years of experience, and she kept commenting, "C'est delicious! Tres bon!" I hope she actually DID like it! And she was somewhat shocked at the spicy Taco Bell sauce my mom sent me. We tried to warn her...! Poor lady...but that was something I thought I'd never see, the image of Madame using her hands to try to eat a messy taco.
First, you have to realize that the oddest things prove very difficult here: for example, locating and affording the ingredients. I spent about 9 euros (maybe 12ish US dollars) on the meat, which was only half a pound of ground beef. The store also only carried one size to choose from. Next, sour cream? No. Didn't happen. We couldn't even begin to imagine what that might be called in French, since it's just a description in English anyway. Cheddar cheese? You'd think in a country famous for its cheeses, it'd have them all but...not so! Only French cheeses, and zero cheddar. We refused to mix more cultures into this taco, so we went without cheese as well. My mom had mailed me a few weeks ago taco seasoning and tortillas, so we were set there since there wasn't any of either at the stores we visited.
We had a grand old time, us roomies plus a friend of mine who doesn't have a roommate who Madame said we coudl invite, in the kitchen preparing the food, listening to music on our computers, and generally bustling about and singing along. It's a good thing Madame didn't come home just then. My roommate wanted to put all the toppings in pretty bowls, but I wanted to be ULTRA un-French and keep them in pans, etc., but she won out on the end - I think Madame would have been shocked to actually see a pan of rice at the table.
We had to show Madame how to put it together (Oh and it was quite funny to watch her try to eat the chips and salsa) and she had a most difficult time eating it with her hands. Poor lady - she ended up scooping the lost toppings onto her fork surruptitiously with her chips after a taco. She was surprised when we kept eating, and we explained that pretty much this was the only course. We DID make dessert but really none of us have dessert every day. So she willingly dug in to yet another, exclaiming to me at one point, "Sariah, how do you keep it all in the, how you say, tortilla!?" and we showed her again how to fold it. She seemed to have fun, though, watching our obvious delight at something we all knew and loved from years of experience, and she kept commenting, "C'est delicious! Tres bon!" I hope she actually DID like it! And she was somewhat shocked at the spicy Taco Bell sauce my mom sent me. We tried to warn her...! Poor lady...but that was something I thought I'd never see, the image of Madame using her hands to try to eat a messy taco.
15 October 2006
Les Châteaux de la Loire (Castles of the Loire)
We went on a three day excursion to go see the châteaus in the Loire Valley. This includes all the famous ones people know, such as Chenonceau or Chambord, and also far less well known ones. (When I type a name, such as Blois or Lingeais, I mean that chateau, not a city. Usually they were cities too, but we didn’t go visiting cites; we went a-castling.)
Thursday
Today we went to Blois, which was pretty, but it was a good thing it was first; otherwise nobody would have cared since we’ve seen so many amazing chateaus this week. We also went to the city Amboise and its Chateau de Clos Lucé, which is where Leonardo da Vinci lived for three years (and also where he died). It didn’t look like a chateau, and in fact until looking it up later I just thought it was a house with extensive grounds. The house was neat and cool, as they had many models of his inventions all around and interesting facts, such as “this is the room in which he painted his painting of John the Baptist.” The grounds, however, were amazing!
At first, I was just struck by how beautiful they are – a miniature forest with some fields and some little swamps…no wonder he made inspired paintings! Soon, however, you appreciate all the work the people who made this a sort of memorial put into it – scattered throughout all his grounds, there are life-size models of his inventions (and most of them are functioning!) and little descriptions of them. There were perhaps 12 of these models that I saw (and I didn’t get everywhere) and there are also lots of sort of silk-screens of his paintings/sketches that are huge hanging from trees all over the grounds, and they are really impressive. These grounds were my very favorite thing about this whole weekend – they were amazing!
Food, the Good: We had an amazing dinner tonight, too. It had an amazing sort of stew dish which I forgot the name of – I’ll ask, though, since I plan to make it pretty much every day when I get back to the US. It had white beans and duck meat and an amazing gravy/sauce and was AMAZING! We also had the best dessert I’ve had here, which was chocolat fondant, which was also marvelous.
Friday the 13th
In France, Friday the 13th is actually a really lucky day. Lots of people buy lottery tickets and look for signs on that day. Our day started out nicely, then, when we saw a little gray kitten outside Villandry. It came right up to me and climbed on my lap as I knelt to pet it. The daughter of our directors named him Leonardo da Vinci, and he let me pick him up and let me/the daughter (but she kept almost dropping him, so I was the delegated holder while she petted) carry him for almost ten full minutes as we wandered the gardens. (We didn’t even go inside the chateau, since this one’s only famous for the gardens.) As it turns out, it wasn’t so lucky, since my good friend is allergic to cats and had to move from her seat next to mine for the rest of the day after she sniffed and looked at me accusingly – “You were WEARING that sweater when you HELD it!”
Then we went to Lingeais, which is the “most medieval” chateau in this valley. This was very cool – we got to walk along the ramparts, which are that little bit along the tops of towers/castles that looks like it sticks out a little bit and has little windows in it. I didn’t know that this was actually a place for guards/etc. to walk around in, and it was really cool. An important thing to remember about medieval castles is that they weren’t built for beauty; they were built for defense, which is why they’re usually nondescript and fortress-like. I think we might have made our director’s wife (who is Romanian) roll her eyes as we walked the ramparts singing, “…and the raaaaaamparts we walked were so gallantly streaming!” and making up other phrases of our national anthem that were appropriate to the castle. I don’t think the ramparts they watched were of this kind, though.
We took a quick peek at the exterior of Chateau d’Ussé, which was the model for the castle in Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty.” After that, we went to Azay-le-Rideau which was another of my favorites. We (the director’s daughter, I, and another girl who somehow ended up exploring all the castles together) called it the Beauty and the Beast castle, since it was surrounded by a little forest and was quite lovely. It was very fun and surrounded on 3 sides by a lake/river thing, and it was really cool. There was another cat on the pathway to/from the chateau who let us pet it and it was black (Friday the 13th! Black cats! Lucky us!!) and it was sleepy (so much so that it hadn’t moved when we came back, and leaves had fallen on it) and we named it Catherine de Medici. I miss my kitties at home now! The director was actually half talked into taking the first one (we were informed by a worker that it was a stray but a friendly one) home, since their daughter’s birthday is in a week anyway, but then there’s the whole bus/going to the bathroom cat problem.
Saturday
This morning we went to go see Chenonceau, which is the picturesque chateau that spans across a river. It was quite large and one of the “top two” chateaus of the valley. It had really nice long halls across the river with windows on both sides from which you could see the river and boats going under it. It also had very fun kitchens, and had these squashes/gourds that were tall and skinny and green, so at first they looked like candles: more specifically, like when Shrek pulled out his earwax and used it as a candle. On the grounds, our little chateau-exploring group (the two of us plus the cute 8 year old girl, Anna-Marie) took the opportunity to teach Anna-Marie (us being LDS girl’s camp veterans, and A-M being neither) the songs “The Princess Pat,” and many others. We gave her candy, too – her poor parents are going to hate us. She’ll probably go around singing “A rigabamboo! Now what is that? It’s something made by the Princess Pat…” for weeks.
Then we went on to Chambord (the other “top two”) which was IMMENSE. The first thing you notice, however, is the roof. It looks like a city up there. It is truly amazing – something like 200 chimneys, all decorated beautifully in an amazingly organized pattern. I spent most of my time there on the roof (there’s a roof balcony thing) and it is completely beautiful – my other favorit-est thing of the trip. It reminded me of Bert’s singing in Mary Poppins, only minus the smoke and London: “Up where the smoke is all billowed and curled, ‘tween pavement and stars is the chimney sweep world. Where there’s hardly no day, nor hardly no night, worlds off in shadows, off way and wide. On the rooftops of London…ooh, what a sight!” We (my little castle club!) sang this together some several times here, it is true.
Summary: We saw eight chateaus (ten if you count the two we walked past to get to our destinations, and many more if you count the drive), and spoke French lots, and petted kitties and ate amazing food and didn’t shower and lost my deodorant, and filled up my entire camera memory card, and decided what specific digital camera I am going to buy since I’ve discovered that mine is dumb, oh oh oh! and used my friend’s digital micro-focus to take close up pictures of our eyes, and slept on the bus but not at the hotel, and ate bread for breakfast and it was, all of it, GREAT!
Thursday
Today we went to Blois, which was pretty, but it was a good thing it was first; otherwise nobody would have cared since we’ve seen so many amazing chateaus this week. We also went to the city Amboise and its Chateau de Clos Lucé, which is where Leonardo da Vinci lived for three years (and also where he died). It didn’t look like a chateau, and in fact until looking it up later I just thought it was a house with extensive grounds. The house was neat and cool, as they had many models of his inventions all around and interesting facts, such as “this is the room in which he painted his painting of John the Baptist.” The grounds, however, were amazing!
At first, I was just struck by how beautiful they are – a miniature forest with some fields and some little swamps…no wonder he made inspired paintings! Soon, however, you appreciate all the work the people who made this a sort of memorial put into it – scattered throughout all his grounds, there are life-size models of his inventions (and most of them are functioning!) and little descriptions of them. There were perhaps 12 of these models that I saw (and I didn’t get everywhere) and there are also lots of sort of silk-screens of his paintings/sketches that are huge hanging from trees all over the grounds, and they are really impressive. These grounds were my very favorite thing about this whole weekend – they were amazing!
Food, the Good: We had an amazing dinner tonight, too. It had an amazing sort of stew dish which I forgot the name of – I’ll ask, though, since I plan to make it pretty much every day when I get back to the US. It had white beans and duck meat and an amazing gravy/sauce and was AMAZING! We also had the best dessert I’ve had here, which was chocolat fondant, which was also marvelous.
Friday the 13th
In France, Friday the 13th is actually a really lucky day. Lots of people buy lottery tickets and look for signs on that day. Our day started out nicely, then, when we saw a little gray kitten outside Villandry. It came right up to me and climbed on my lap as I knelt to pet it. The daughter of our directors named him Leonardo da Vinci, and he let me pick him up and let me/the daughter (but she kept almost dropping him, so I was the delegated holder while she petted) carry him for almost ten full minutes as we wandered the gardens. (We didn’t even go inside the chateau, since this one’s only famous for the gardens.) As it turns out, it wasn’t so lucky, since my good friend is allergic to cats and had to move from her seat next to mine for the rest of the day after she sniffed and looked at me accusingly – “You were WEARING that sweater when you HELD it!”
Then we went to Lingeais, which is the “most medieval” chateau in this valley. This was very cool – we got to walk along the ramparts, which are that little bit along the tops of towers/castles that looks like it sticks out a little bit and has little windows in it. I didn’t know that this was actually a place for guards/etc. to walk around in, and it was really cool. An important thing to remember about medieval castles is that they weren’t built for beauty; they were built for defense, which is why they’re usually nondescript and fortress-like. I think we might have made our director’s wife (who is Romanian) roll her eyes as we walked the ramparts singing, “…and the raaaaaamparts we walked were so gallantly streaming!” and making up other phrases of our national anthem that were appropriate to the castle. I don’t think the ramparts they watched were of this kind, though.
We took a quick peek at the exterior of Chateau d’Ussé, which was the model for the castle in Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty.” After that, we went to Azay-le-Rideau which was another of my favorites. We (the director’s daughter, I, and another girl who somehow ended up exploring all the castles together) called it the Beauty and the Beast castle, since it was surrounded by a little forest and was quite lovely. It was very fun and surrounded on 3 sides by a lake/river thing, and it was really cool. There was another cat on the pathway to/from the chateau who let us pet it and it was black (Friday the 13th! Black cats! Lucky us!!) and it was sleepy (so much so that it hadn’t moved when we came back, and leaves had fallen on it) and we named it Catherine de Medici. I miss my kitties at home now! The director was actually half talked into taking the first one (we were informed by a worker that it was a stray but a friendly one) home, since their daughter’s birthday is in a week anyway, but then there’s the whole bus/going to the bathroom cat problem.
Saturday
This morning we went to go see Chenonceau, which is the picturesque chateau that spans across a river. It was quite large and one of the “top two” chateaus of the valley. It had really nice long halls across the river with windows on both sides from which you could see the river and boats going under it. It also had very fun kitchens, and had these squashes/gourds that were tall and skinny and green, so at first they looked like candles: more specifically, like when Shrek pulled out his earwax and used it as a candle. On the grounds, our little chateau-exploring group (the two of us plus the cute 8 year old girl, Anna-Marie) took the opportunity to teach Anna-Marie (us being LDS girl’s camp veterans, and A-M being neither) the songs “The Princess Pat,” and many others. We gave her candy, too – her poor parents are going to hate us. She’ll probably go around singing “A rigabamboo! Now what is that? It’s something made by the Princess Pat…” for weeks.
Then we went on to Chambord (the other “top two”) which was IMMENSE. The first thing you notice, however, is the roof. It looks like a city up there. It is truly amazing – something like 200 chimneys, all decorated beautifully in an amazingly organized pattern. I spent most of my time there on the roof (there’s a roof balcony thing) and it is completely beautiful – my other favorit-est thing of the trip. It reminded me of Bert’s singing in Mary Poppins, only minus the smoke and London: “Up where the smoke is all billowed and curled, ‘tween pavement and stars is the chimney sweep world. Where there’s hardly no day, nor hardly no night, worlds off in shadows, off way and wide. On the rooftops of London…ooh, what a sight!” We (my little castle club!) sang this together some several times here, it is true.
Summary: We saw eight chateaus (ten if you count the two we walked past to get to our destinations, and many more if you count the drive), and spoke French lots, and petted kitties and ate amazing food and didn’t shower and lost my deodorant, and filled up my entire camera memory card, and decided what specific digital camera I am going to buy since I’ve discovered that mine is dumb, oh oh oh! and used my friend’s digital micro-focus to take close up pictures of our eyes, and slept on the bus but not at the hotel, and ate bread for breakfast and it was, all of it, GREAT!
07 October 2006
What it's like
During one of my "France is stupid, everything is dumb here" episodes earlier on, someone told me something our director told their class. He said that if we were to go to India or Africa, we would expect the culture to be completely different; however, coming here, we expect it to much like America so we get frustrated when it's not. Remembering that helps me not to be too frustrated that the light switches are upside down, or upset that the shower and toilet and sink are in different rooms.
That said, let's go through a typical day for me, which isn't frustrating, but hey, why not?
I wake up, whereupon I eat breakfast, which in France is bread and hot cocoa. That's all. Bread in French is "pain," pronounced "pan," like a stove pan, and I hated only having that at first but I'm used to it now. I get ready to go, and then I either walk down 4 flights of stairs or take the smallest elevator ever (not kidding - it's maximum capacity it says is 3 people, but it's very uncomfortable with 2). Then I walk the 15 minute walk to the RER (the metro line that goes from the suburbs into Paris) stop, called the "gare," and then take the 30 minute RER ride into town. (By the way, the French go on strike all the time and on the RER what that means is it goes very slow, so last week the RER ride was over an hour long.) I go to class in the institute, which is also the church building, and which is next door to a gay bar and in the center of the homosexual area of the city. It's pretty funny - the gay bar is called "curieux," which means "curious" and is pretty funny to see that next door to the missionaries.
Depending on what day it is, I might go in to town early and walk around/eat lunch/go see sites/use the internet, or I might go around after class. Either way, I rarely just go in for only school.
I then take the RER home, and walk home, but the walk home takes 25 minutes since they close a gate at 7 pm and I have to walk around the entire complex (sometimes I just jump the wall next to the gate, though). On M, T, and W I have dinner with Madame, (and two of the last 3 meals have been fish. Sigh. Once it was raw salmon.)
or I'll eat it on the walk home from the RER after I had bought it in the city.
I then stay up and do homework/play around with pictures on my laptop, watch the exciting movies my mom mailed me (thanks Mom!) or play computer games or read books, since my mom mailed me one, I bought one, and I borrowed one from my friend. I am going through withdrawel not having books here, by the way. And then I go to sleep. I only have classes on M, T, W, so on the long weekends I'll spend a lot of time in Paris or explore other cities (ex, yesterday I went to see where Louis XIV was born in the next village up, and it turns out I can see that chateau in the distance from my apartment window) and it's great fun!
That said, let's go through a typical day for me, which isn't frustrating, but hey, why not?
I wake up, whereupon I eat breakfast, which in France is bread and hot cocoa. That's all. Bread in French is "pain," pronounced "pan," like a stove pan, and I hated only having that at first but I'm used to it now. I get ready to go, and then I either walk down 4 flights of stairs or take the smallest elevator ever (not kidding - it's maximum capacity it says is 3 people, but it's very uncomfortable with 2). Then I walk the 15 minute walk to the RER (the metro line that goes from the suburbs into Paris) stop, called the "gare," and then take the 30 minute RER ride into town. (By the way, the French go on strike all the time and on the RER what that means is it goes very slow, so last week the RER ride was over an hour long.) I go to class in the institute, which is also the church building, and which is next door to a gay bar and in the center of the homosexual area of the city. It's pretty funny - the gay bar is called "curieux," which means "curious" and is pretty funny to see that next door to the missionaries.
Depending on what day it is, I might go in to town early and walk around/eat lunch/go see sites/use the internet, or I might go around after class. Either way, I rarely just go in for only school.
I then take the RER home, and walk home, but the walk home takes 25 minutes since they close a gate at 7 pm and I have to walk around the entire complex (sometimes I just jump the wall next to the gate, though). On M, T, and W I have dinner with Madame, (and two of the last 3 meals have been fish. Sigh. Once it was raw salmon.)
or I'll eat it on the walk home from the RER after I had bought it in the city.
I then stay up and do homework/play around with pictures on my laptop, watch the exciting movies my mom mailed me (thanks Mom!) or play computer games or read books, since my mom mailed me one, I bought one, and I borrowed one from my friend. I am going through withdrawel not having books here, by the way. And then I go to sleep. I only have classes on M, T, W, so on the long weekends I'll spend a lot of time in Paris or explore other cities (ex, yesterday I went to see where Louis XIV was born in the next village up, and it turns out I can see that chateau in the distance from my apartment window) and it's great fun!
02 October 2006
What the French Think
Last night I went to go chat with my French mom about how it’s nice to see things differently now that I’ve been here. I gave a few examples of little small things that are cool and different, my “petite madeleines,” and how only having been here a month has changed my paradigm. Well, that’s what I had intended to say but I don’t know the word for paradigm in French, but as I tried to get across what I was thinking about, her response struck me as being actually very profound, especially coming to someone like me from someone like her.
She said, (and this is per my memory and translation and paraphrasing), “It’s important to know when the world is different. People don’t like each other so often because they don’t understand what the other is thinking. And when people have had problems and are later in their life like me, you realize what is important and it’s the same things that are important everywhere. We say, ‘Well so-and-so is what the Americans think,’ and they say that about us, but what’s important is that we’re both right! Things that are so different are really the same, and it’s important to understand people.”
She said, (and this is per my memory and translation and paraphrasing), “It’s important to know when the world is different. People don’t like each other so often because they don’t understand what the other is thinking. And when people have had problems and are later in their life like me, you realize what is important and it’s the same things that are important everywhere. We say, ‘Well so-and-so is what the Americans think,’ and they say that about us, but what’s important is that we’re both right! Things that are so different are really the same, and it’s important to understand people.”
Conference, Sketchy Restaurants, and Drunk Kisses
For those who are interested in how General Conference works in different time zones, here’s a quick sketch of how it works for us: on Saturday, we went to the stake centre in Versailles, and we watched the RS broadcast from the week before at 4 pm our time, then at 6 watched the live streaming of Saturday AM session. On Sunday, the men go in to watch the recorded priesthood session at 11 am, then at 2 pm everyone watches the recorded Saturday PM. Then you get 2 hours to eat (or in my case, go to stake choir practice in French. Hah, that was interesting) and then we watched Sunday AM live at 6. Next Sunday becomes Fast Sunday, and for the first two hours of church we’ll watch the recorded Sunday PM and then have a brief fast and testimony meeting.
On Saturday after conference we went into Paris and ate dinner at a sketchy Greek restaurant (we didn’t realize how sketchy it was until after we’d ordered) that was quite funny. Behind me was the backside of a naked Greek statue, and I noticed that not many people looked at me during the meal – it must have been too distracting. The food was okay, nothing special, but it was cheep. And our ice cream desert came in little paper packets. Esther (one of my friends) got escargot (in a Greek restaurant!?) and we all tried it, including me, Mom! You’d be proud! It tasted like dirt, but maybe that was the dirt that was in it. Hmm.
Trying to find the metro, we ran into a few drunk French youth. They told us they were drunk and we saw them with some beer so I’m guessing it was true. (The French are naturally reserved, so in my experience, when they get drunk they get very friendly and flirty, not violent.) It was very funny, and one fellow (probably 16-17?) asked me to go to a “discothèque” with him (dance hall) but I had to decline. He wouldn’t let me take his picture since he claimed he was a huge model and had to protect his image (but he wasn’t a model. He was attractive, though, for a 16 year old!) but he offered to kiss me instead. I was a little worried he’d just plop one on me, so he clarified: kiss my cheeks in the French fashion. So yes, I got kissed in France by a strange Frenchman.
On Saturday after conference we went into Paris and ate dinner at a sketchy Greek restaurant (we didn’t realize how sketchy it was until after we’d ordered) that was quite funny. Behind me was the backside of a naked Greek statue, and I noticed that not many people looked at me during the meal – it must have been too distracting. The food was okay, nothing special, but it was cheep. And our ice cream desert came in little paper packets. Esther (one of my friends) got escargot (in a Greek restaurant!?) and we all tried it, including me, Mom! You’d be proud! It tasted like dirt, but maybe that was the dirt that was in it. Hmm.
Trying to find the metro, we ran into a few drunk French youth. They told us they were drunk and we saw them with some beer so I’m guessing it was true. (The French are naturally reserved, so in my experience, when they get drunk they get very friendly and flirty, not violent.) It was very funny, and one fellow (probably 16-17?) asked me to go to a “discothèque” with him (dance hall) but I had to decline. He wouldn’t let me take his picture since he claimed he was a huge model and had to protect his image (but he wasn’t a model. He was attractive, though, for a 16 year old!) but he offered to kiss me instead. I was a little worried he’d just plop one on me, so he clarified: kiss my cheeks in the French fashion. So yes, I got kissed in France by a strange Frenchman.
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