...just can't come up with a title as wit-fabulous as "Dog Shit"...

I'd like to prefix the following with a disclaimer--for the amount we seem to be complaining about Paris, it's mostly for comedic effect. I am truly beginning to love it here. But there are some large cultural differences worth pointing out--par example, the extraordinary amount of animal excrement that made an appearance on our blog in the last week.

To follow Renée's brilliantly witty rant on dog shit, I would like to talk about another distinct Parisian phenomenon I've been taking note of just recently. And that is the location of the "Badasses." To clarify what we mean by that term, it usually is any large group younger people, mostly men, who hang around on a street corner making comments at the passers by. We do not mean gun-gangs or knife-fighting. Anyway, these "Badasses" can be found in a wide variety of odd locations, three of which I'll present for you at this very moment.

1. McDonald's. Oh yes, boys and girls, MacDo is home to it's very own fast-foody gang. When we first got here, we wondered why every McDonald's had a big, burly bouncer underneath it's happy golden arches. After witnessing two minor spats settled by fist-fights within Ronald McDonald's house, we get it. We like our Big Macs protected by Big Macs. There's a group of men who heckle women outside the Cadet McDonald's--that was our first hint at the wonderment that is Paris counterculture. We were puzzled. Why McDonald's? What makes it attractive for a group of young men who gather together as regularly as a church congregation for the sole purpose of loudly appreciating women in slang French? Is it just to play evade the bouncer all night?

2.The Opera. Curiouser and curiouser! The Opera by the Bastille is home to the punkiest looking gang of boho/skaters I've ever seen. Complete with multicoloured hair and chains. They don't seem to mind us sitting on the steps, which is a plus, because it is, indeed, an excellent sitting spot. These are perhaps the most cultured group of Badasses ever! And the best part is...no catcalls thus far!

3.Church. Not kidding. The last gang of men to catcall Renée and I were in front of a church at about 10 pm. We went to check what time mass was...and there they were. Badasses at church. Their grandmother's must be so proud.

So what's the appeal of all of these places? No one asks them to leave--they aren't really doing any harm. But why? Why church? Why any of it? Here's the theory. There isn't really a "ghetto" area in Paris like there are in most cities--that's outside the city here. Instead you have grand places...like the opera. And pretty much the most not-grand place one could pick is McDonald's(even with Ronald McDonald's hit-men menacing at the door.) So for all the young men (and sometimes women) who aspire to be badasses but alas, don't live in inner-city New York, they must make do with what they've got. Church.

Now to make it clear, I am not bashing counterculture. Not in the slightest. I like to see real humanity juxtaposed with the grandeur of Paris (as long as humanity isn't telling me how nice my rear is.) It just isn't something I'm used to. People don't pick those places in the U.S.

And maybe that's because they're asked to leave. So I suppose the real phenomenon for me is not the exact locations chosen for "just hagin'," it's that French youth are allowed to speak their mind so freely in so public a place. That would never occur in the U.S.

...I just wish their "minds" didn't seem to continually spout phrases beginning or ending with...well...I'll leave that one up to your imagination...

Dog Shit

Welcome to Paris: City of Lights and Love. City of bread and cheese and wine. City of music, art, culture. City of history and mystery. City of intellect. City of grandeur.

City of dog shit.

Yeah that's right. Dog shit. after you tear your eyes away from the Eiffel tower, the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the arch de triumph, you'll notice a nasty smell and a sticky, slidy substance attached to your lovely new white Nikes that give you away as an American and that my friends, is what Paris is really famous for. Not only do Parisians let their dogs crap on the sidewalks, they can't be bothered to pick it up. Which adds a certain charm to the city pavement. A decoration if you will. And I do mean decoration. For as you can see, Parisian dogs shit in the most interesting colors in the world. A regular cornucopia of hues and smells. I don’t know what French people feed their dogs, but it certainly paints the concrete all sorts of remarkable colors. Greens, yellows, oranges, reds, pinks and only very rarely do you see a brown. I fear for the lives of these dogs. And the lives of Parisians. I thought we figured out that dumping shit into the streets was a bad idea in like 1830. It spreads dysentery.

So please Paris, love your arrondissement. And not only yours, but those of your neighbors. And pick up your dog crap, so I don't get dysentery.

Love,
Renée

Culture: With Ali and Renée

Ali and the Contact Juggler

Okay guys--I know a video was supposed to go up here next. But that was Renée's thing, and unfortunately, because her computer had the clap (which turned out to be terminal), she had to reformat. She hasn't lost her video...it just isn't playing sound. We will figure it out A.S.A.P. and get it up here as soon as possible.

In the meantime, so all our faithful readers do not believe us to be dead, I'll do another post. This story took place the very same day I wrote "Ode to Grève" on the blog and is quite obviously about me and a contact juggler. Does everyone know what a contact juggler is? Everyone seen "The Labyrinth?" With David Bowie? It's a children's movie. Anyway, what they do in that movie with the glass ball is contact juggling. For those of you who haven't seen "The Labyrinth"...google it, you lazy asses!

And now for the story.

So I'm at Place de Clichy waiting to change to the 13 to get home. I just left a dinner party because I was miserable. I'm so homesick and I'm afraid everything at home is changing without me so much that everything will be different when I get back. Unrecognizable. And to top it all off, I can't make friends here. Because my French is awful! Stilted and peppered with errors. I continually sound like an idiot, every minute of every day, and everyone knows that's not cool with me.

So in my sour mood, I'm just wishing my gosh darn train would arrive. I turn my head to impatiently look for the train (as if it will make it come faster) when I see a scruffy-looking man with a glass ball on his head. Being that "The Labyrinth" was hands-down my favorite childhood movie, I know exactly what this glass ball is for. And I crack a tiny smile.

The man sees me smile and I think, "Oh, great, this guy thinks I'm hitting on him now" because it is against the social code to smile at anyone in the metro. In Paris, you have to look spitting-mean all the time. No smiling. No laughing. No fun. But seeing that I had smiled, the man began to juggle.

Now everyone on the platform is watching. And I'm grinning like an idiot. Of course there are people who pretend not to see. Who keep to the rule that fun in the metro is outlawed. Taboo. But then there are the rest of us who think that contact juggling looks like magic. And it does, if you've ever seen it. It looks like the glass is floating and the guy is just moving his hands around it.

As he's juggling, the train arrives. So he stops and begins to follow me on to the train. And I think, "Great. Another French man is going to tell me how beautiful my eyes are." So just in case this man thinks he's going to sweep me off my feet, I choose a car on the train filled with military men in camouflage carrying M16's. They've got my back in case this man wants to rape me.

Now we're in the train, and the contact juggler begins talking to me rapidly in French. Usually, anyone talking to me on the metro would get the cold shoulder. It's the cultural norm: in the metro, there is no smiling. No talking. No laughing. No fun. But I figured, I've got the M16 men in case it goes sour and this guy made me smile during a time when my smiles are rare, so I'll talk to him for a couple minutes. He get's the benefit of the doubt...

Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, my French is atrocious. And I couldn't really understand what he was saying oh, so quickly. So I tell him (in French) that I speak English waaaayyyy better than I speak French. So he tries it in English, which is a disaster. I got one word: tubes. So I finish my thought with "If you speak slowly in French, I will understand you. I hope" (in French, of course.)

So he says to me (again in French, but veeery slowly this time) "I can't believe this little glass ball has the power to make people smile in the metro. Parisians never smile in the metro. And that, in my opinion, is real magic."

At this point, the train is stopping at La Fourche. So he gets out and begins juggling again, right in front of the doors. At this point, everyone in the car is straining to see. And I mean everyone. At the end, he mimes biting a string above the ball and let's it fall to the floor. He takes a bow. And those military men behind me with tough guy expressions and the guns? They clap. And they say to each other how amazing that was, big smiles on their faces.

I think this moment right here--knowing that magic is real and humanity exists--has improved my mood for the better. I think this is the turning point of my depression here in Paris. When I get homesick or when I feel like an idiot, I just have to remember that I know a secret. Magic is real. And I discovered it in the Paris metro.

Ode to the Grève

Oh, grève, where would we be without you? In class, that’s where. I just had my third class canceled due to grève today…and who knows if I’ll have my mime class this evening. I sure don’t, because all the secretaries are closed…due to grève. The grève, among other current events, is what's making me feel like this:




Inspired by my general mood right about now and my intense dislike of the lack of information presented to students, I give you, faithful readers, my Ode to the Grève. Now, it’s not a real ode—I couldn’t remember how to do an ode, though I know I learned in sophomore year creative writing with Mr. Lee. But nevertheless, it describes my feelings on the grève.


If you are an étudiant
À université
Grève equals an ever-constant
Reminder of stupidité.

If you are Ali, your classes
Are all about the grève.
How it affects the masses
From profs to les elèves.

Or how about Renée
Who’s classes, cut in half,
Function kind of like a snow day
Due to grèv-ing staff.

Or Eugene, from sciences po
(In English, poly-sci.)
They’re always analyzing, so
He love grève long time.

But we go and we hope
That we indeed do have a class.
And when we discover nope
It’s a huge pain in the ass.

The least they could do, je crois
Is please put up a sign.
But since they don’t, il y a
A gigantic waste of time.

Impossible Baked Brie

Alrighty, guys, I know I named it "impossible", but this is actually one of the easiest things to ever come out of an oven. But this brie is impossible for us to make because...well...see for yourself:







That's our kitchen. Our really small kitchen. Yes, my palms are flat on both walls. And while Impossible Baked Brie is one of the easiest things to ever result from an oven, it is impossible for Renée and I because...we don't have an oven. But this is a great hit at parties where the host does have an oven.

I came up with it when we were living on Chelsey and Dave's floor and we needed food to feed four...or more. So here it is, without further ado:

Impossible Baked Brie (2 Variations)

Ingrediants for Sweet Baked Brie:

Wedge or round of brie

3 to 4 apples (your choice)

Plain ol' almonds (with nothing done to them--no "honey roasted" or anything like that)

Butter--lots of it

Sugar--lots of it.

A baguette from any good French patisserie (or Shoprite)

Directions for Sweet Baked Brie:

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees celsius.

Slice the apples up and lay them out all pretty in the bottom of a glass pie plate (one that you can put in an oven.)

Stick the brie on top of the apples, toss a few apples on top for good measure.

Chuck your almonds on top of all that.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and the sugar together. Pour that mess on top of the other mess.

Cover the whole, collective mess with tinfoil.

Chuck that brie in the oven for...well...I'm not really sure how long. But as soon as it starts to melt, take the tinfoil off and let the top brown and the cheese melt a little more.

Serve with the baguette--just dip that sucker in there for the best party food ever!

Ingredients for Tomato and Pepper Brie:

Wedge or round of brie

2 Red bell peppers

2 Yellow bell peppers

1 package of cherry tomatoes

Olive oil

Two cloves of garlic

Directions for Tomato and Pepper Brie:

Slice up the peppers and put them in the bottom of a glass pie plate (again, guys, please use one you can put in an oven.)

Put the brie on top of the peppers.

And then the tomatoes (sliced up) on top of the brie.

Crush the garlic and mix it with the olive oil--pour the concoction over the brie.

Follow the same directions as the Sweet Brie from here on out.

With either one of the bries, you can totally bake it without the tinfoil if you prefer the top to be more brown.

Barcelona!

Renée's Now Famous "Some-Kinda-Pasta"

So in my attempt to spend less than 60 euro before the end of the month, I made some pasta from pretty much everything I could find in my kitchen. Ommitting the oranges. It goes a little something like this...

Some-Kinda-Pasta

Ingredients

Macaroni pasta
Water

Olive oil
One garlic clove
Dried basil
Crème fraîche
Tomato paste
Water
Salt
Pepper or mystery polish spice from kitchen
A teeny tiny bit of sugar

Directions
Start noodles first and cook for specified amount of time.

Meanwhile, in a separate pan, heat olive oil until crackly. Add roughly chopped garlic and cook until golden brown and tasty. Add some basil flakes and fry them a little bit. Add some crème fraîche, a bit of tomato paste, just so the sauce looks pink. Add a little water to thin the sauce out then season to taste with salt, pepper/mystery polish spice, a tiny pinch of sugar and some more basil flakes. Pour that shit on the drained pasta and enjoy! Serve with off brand cola out of champagne flutes for extra class.

Ali's Epic First Day of School Part Deux

I found it.

Not the first course. The first course is dead to me. The first course kicked my dog down the stairs and dropped a house on my sister.

The second course, however, the dance-theatre course...that's my brand new lover.

From what I understand, we incorporate bodily expression from Indian traditional dance and from other sources, like mime, into textual acting. So we spent the day pretending to be animals with a couple of traditional symbols thrown in there.

Renée peaked into Amphi IV and had no friggin' clue what was going on.

I, on the other hand, was too busy being a lion to notice.

Ali's Epic First Day of School Part Un

So I wake up mad early this morning on the off chance I have what appears to be some sort of theatre history class. "Appears to be", because again, I speak Franglais and not fluent French. I get my lazy ass off of my beloved futon, sit my bum down on the 13, and trek to Saint Denis in my rain boots, all starry-eyed and hopeful about my very first day at a French University.

Back story: the class I was going to have this morning had a layer of mystery about it in that on the schedule it said it was this morning, but in the brochure, it said it was tomorrow.

I get there early to check the newly-posted schedule, and not only is the class definitely this morning, but it appears to be in a different room than originally posted. Okay! It's a building, it makes sense, and I should be able to find A-0169 very easily! Not a problem!

Oh how very wrong I was.

First I go to what appears to be A-169, where the professor very kindly told me a lit class was going to take place. Okay, so I checked again, realized there was a zero, and figured 0 = basement.

So after going through the basement of building A in its entirety, I return to the schedule to stare hopelessly at the room number.

I finally ask someone (in French), and they lead me to an offshoot hallway behind closed doors and voila! A-0169!

So it's 9:01, and the professor is already talking. So I run in and take my seat. The professor talks about how he's not going to be there one week because he's teaching in Tunisia, makes a joke I don't understand about Brazil, and gives an assignment to one girl in the front regarding Chile.

I thought, this is a strange theatre history class. Maybe he changed the topic and it's no longer theatre of the first half of the 20th century. Maybe it's theatre around the world. That'd be cool.

Then a girl walks in and asks if this is the class for *insert name of class that is very, very not "French Theatre of the First Half of the 20th Century."* It could have been aesthetiques or some such thing.

Anyways, the professor says "Oui!"

...

...oops...

And everyone laughs as I leave the room.

I'm pretty sure it was a master class on introduction to qualitative research. I bought myself a giant croissant aux amandes and cried.

Hopefully I can find the dance-theatre class I'm supposed to have at 15h today.

First Day of Work

This is Ali, btw. If you couldn't tell, the last post was Renée. But I bet you can tell. She has a specific tone of writing.

So instead of having class today, I had work. I teach English at Epitech, an engineering school. And I don't want to say much about it, because they're all computer people (it's basically hacker-school), and I'd bet half-a-million dollars that they're reading this right now. Yes. Right now. Which is awesome, because at least they're practicing their English. All I will say is that it takes me a trillion years to get there. There could not be anything more on the opposite side of Paris from my apartment. I'm pretty sure I picked the worst place to work, location-wise. I have two options.

1) The 13 to 6 to 7. Or...

2) The 13 to the T3.

The first is three trains. The second is the tram, which I've discovered moves slower than a 93 year old woman.

I'll write tomorrow when I actually have classes to write about. Right now, I'm going to rock out to "Spring Awakening", down my yummy tea, shower, and sleep on my sheet-less futon. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. I don't have sheets. Or a bed. Just my futon. Luckily, it's a really comfy futon. Which I'm going to utilize in 2.5 seconds. Signing out, y'all!

First Day of School

I walked into Legendre (that's what we've been calling our apartment) at about nine tonight after trudging back from St. Denis in the pouring freaking rain after sitting through six hours of class. But this six hours of class wasn't just any normal six straight hours of class. Oh no my friends. It was the first day of school. But not the actual first day of school, but the technical first day of school because oh yes, you guessed it, St. Denis is on strike. Which normally would be like a snow day, except that its 40 degrees here in lovely Paris, and its raining. Not snowing. So I arrive at school at about two because I knew it would take me about a million years to find my classroom and lo and behold was I ever correct. One thing about the French, they sure can fuck up room numbers. I mean, the rooms aren’t really marked in the first place. So if you are lucky enough to see the tiny piece of paper that someone taped to the door that says "salle 023" then good for you! But alas, I was not so lucky. After scouring every inch of the first floor of Bâtiment B and just when I was about to get desperate who do I see, striding towards me in his classy navy pea coat with arms outstretched, un-lit cigarette dangling from his lip but mister Eugene Johnson of MICEFA. We bises, we embrace, and I have never been so happy to see someone in my whole life. Ok that’s not true. But I was pretty glad to see someone with a friendly face...and a cigarette. We go out and smoke for a bit but then both have to run to class and after his reassurance, I am fresh to restart my search. I finally fine room 062 which, as you would expect, is across the hall from room 083, and set up camp to wait for my professor (who, although it’s only about ten til class starts, is strangely not here yet.) Another girl comes by to wait in the hall and after a little while says something to the effect of, what class are you waiting for. I start to say, "Atelier de Realisation" but the only thing that comes out is "Atelier de reallsaicdjakl;nklfreajkfds." She looks at me a little strangely, says...what? And I try to repeat myself to no avail. Because freakin REALISATION is hard to say man! You try to say it! Go ahead, try right now! RAY-all-eez-ah-sion. All together! RAY-all-eez-ah-sion. Now try to say it fast and when people are speaking to you in French.

Yeah that’s what I thought

So eventually the two of us come to the conclusion that although it’s five past the start time of the class, we are both here for the same class and that we are in the right place. She makes a little small talk, which surprises me because MICEFA warned us that French students aren’t interested in making friends. She asks me my name, and I ask her her's, which is Claire. And she's nice.

A moment later a flustered looking, short creature starts making its way down the dim hallway and from far away I think its just a really ugly, quasimodo-esque woman. But upon further review I realize it’s actually a man with a huge silver earring in his ear. He’s carrying a massive hot pink plastic bag, and he's flustered, sweating. He looks at us, screws up his face, looks at the door to his right, unlocks it and disappears. Claire looks at me, back down the hall to where he disappeared, back to me, and announces that she's going to ask him a question. She returns rolling her eyes and declares, that's the professor, and she looks a little miffed because he's late and still won’t open the classroom. He emerges from the mystery room he was in, asks if we will watch his stuff, sets down the huge pink bag, and shuffles off down the corridor. Claire looks at me a little scandalized and I agree with her sentiments.

After a little while two more girls arrive and ask us if this is the right room for Atelier de Realisation and we are all kind of sure that it is, but because of the strike nobody is positive. Those two seem to think its Scenario but I think they are wrong. But instead of trying to figure it out we all decide that either way, this is some kind of cinema class and we might as well all just go to it if the PROFESSOR ever comes BACK.

Which he does. And we do.

Bienvenue à St. Denis!