Tourist week

Hello everyone,

I seem to have fallen out of the habit of updating! I need to restart, so I shall. What is new in France? A BIT, not so much.

From what is new with me personally: I have a friend from Vancouver staying with me this week, Gloria (find her Travel blog on my blog list). It has been fun doing a lot touristy things here with her. On sunday when she arrived we did a walking tour with NewEurope. The tour is free (donations collected at the end), and good! It is the same tour company that I did my Berlin walking tour with. Then on Monday we went walking through the Marais. The Marais is the Jewish part of Paris (and the Gay part), so we had a bit of a Jewish day. I attempted to have a Jewish day a couple weeks ago, which was a complete failure since it was a Saturday... Shabbat... so everything Jewish was closed. Anyhow, this Monday we had no problems and went around shopping, eating Falafel, ect. My friend's knowledge of Hebrew got us a free Falafel sample too! Language skills come in handy at very random times.

Tuesday (St. Patrick's Day) we went to the ballet in the evening. It was the "Troisieme Symphonie de Mahler". It was at the Opera Bastille, one of the big opera houses in Paris. We arrive at the Opera at 710, and the show was at 730, and we did not have tickets. So, we went to the last minute line up, which only sells tickets 15 min before the show, so we were actually on time! We got great seats (5th row, fairly central), for 15 euros, a great deal. The show was amazing! There were about 70 dancers accompanied by an orchestra and an opera soloist.

Yesterday we went to Versaille, which is fabulous! It is huge, we spent 7 hours walking around and just got the basic stuff visited. With my bus pass here I get free entry, so that was nice. Also, being mid-week and low season we did not experience huge lineups like many do. We took lots of pictures and shall post some here soon. At one point we asked an asian man to take our photo, and after he asked us to take one... but he pulled back the camera and handed it to his friend, he meant to take the photo WITH us, not of him. It was a great day which ended at LaRotisserie, a restaurant in Belleville which is run by a different NGO each night to raise money, the idea is neat, the food was OK, but the company was awesome as I met back up with the people I traveled with to Morocco.

Today has been chill; I went to school and am now catching up on unreplied emails and some homework. The city is on Strike today and there are big manifestations all over town. The past few weeks have been funny in that sense... pretty much all the Universities here are on strike here (not including mine, since it is an Institution and not a public University). However, we now have to present our student cards when entering the building due to apparent thefts (but I am not sure that is the real reason). I bet they lose more money hiring the security guards than they would in stolen goods. Ironically the school got occupied Tuesday afternoon by protestors who came in through a back entrance. I am not exactly sure what that all was about, but they are gone now. Some of my friends at other Universities here have been very affected by the Strikes and I have heard stories of students returning home, since their semester is already as good as a loss with their courses being suspended now for over a month. France is definatly living up to its repupation for having a lot of strikes and protests.

How to cook an Eggplant

Intro: On my previous post about Market Saxe Breteuil, I mentioned buying an Eggplant. It was an impulse buy and for a week it sat in my fridge while I contemplated what to do with it. It was only when Lisa came to Paris for a week and I invited her over for dinner that it was finally cooked. She had read the post and specifically inquired about how it was doing. Upon the news it was still just sitting in my fridge, she personally took on the task of cooking it up.

Prereqs: Eggplant, Pan, Knife, Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper, Hotplate, Asian from Vancouver.

Step 1: Cut the Eggplant into bit size peices! (It turns out my eggplant was bigger than most of the small asian ones she was used it. We cut it in half, and that was more then enough.)

Step 2: Put the Eggplant into the hot pan with oil, sat and pepper! (only spices I own)


Step 3: Let simmer
Step 4: Enjoy!

Result: Edible Eggplant dish.

Market Saxe-Breteuil + 5 Euros

This beautiful Saturday morning I finally decided to investigate the market prospects nearby. It turns out that there are 2 markets very near by: the rue de Grenelle market and the Saxe-Breteuil market. Grenelle is open Wednesday and Sundays and the S-B is open Thursdays and Saturdays. Therefore, today being a Saturday I went to S-B and it was literally a 2 min walk away.

The market is about a block long and filled with produce, meat, jewellery and clothes. The air smelled of an odd combination of fish and flowers. The stalls would have furry dead rabbits hanging by their feet. I found the sight of the meat quite unappealing. As I walked down, the vendors would call out to get your attention to try and sell you their goods, or their friends yelling out "il est celibataire madame!".

With my 5 euros I had on me I bought:

• 6 tomatoes (because I am addicted to them)
• 10 eggs
• A red pepper
• A baguette
• An eggplant

Now, I need to figure out what to do with an eggplant. I bought it spontaneously and it is now sitting in my fridge. I also need to find something to do with the red pepper... hmm.

La nourriture

Now that I settled into my sweet new pad, I decided to go grocery shopping. Starting with nothing I tried to pick necessary items. These included, a baguette, cheese, pasta, NUTELLA(what french people live off of), honey, more cheese, yougurt, apple sauce, cereal, eggs, 2 apples, 2 carrots, a tomato, and milk. I really don't know how to cook yet, but this all looks yummy to me and I am learning. A friend of my aunts has had me over for dinner a few times and she has kindly explained to me how to prepare what she makes.

The french people are proud of their reputation as a skinny nation, and insist their food is just healthier in general. Their wine, cheese, and chocolate are not like ours in North America, which is why they can eat it as they wish to.

What I have noticed is the way in which people is really what makes them healthier. They seem to take more time for every meal. Dinner time here is 8, not 6. Their relationship to food is not simply a means to an ends, or for instant gratification, it is more about enjoying the food. Smaller portions of quality dishes.

Maybe I'll return healthier after picking up their culinary habits.... if I can only stop devouring an entire baguette every afternoon!

Little random things

What to say...

I saw Babylon AD the other night at a Cinema on the Champs Elysee. It was 10 Euro, which is their premium weekend night price. A bit price, but oh well.

I went to Sciences-Po today for the first time! It is a hidden little building the 6th. It is nice. We had a 4 hour meeting with the hundreds of exchange students where we were just pumped with information. Most people had little breakfast before it started and we didn't get a break until 1:30! At 1:30 I went with some friends to find a restaurant CROUS which has discounted meals for students. For 2.85 Euro you can have a full meal. The meals are edible but people often sit down and try to deduce what type of meat they received.

I finally got an internet cable! This makes me sooo happy. Now I can use t he internet for a decent amount of time instead of always having to borrow cables from others. It also allows me to look up courses which is awesome since my course registration is on Wednesday.

Speaking of registration, I am slightly scared of it since it is supposedly a mad free for all. We were told to pick 2 back up courses for EACH course we want to take. So, since we take 6-7 courses here per semested, we need to pic about 18-21 courses we are interested in! I'm very interested to see what courses I get in the end.

More random tid bits... I locked myself out of my room today. I'll post a picture when I get a chance, but this means I had to cross the 10 lane highway which is right outside my room 6 times this afternoon to sort it out since the administration for my residence is on the other side. The over pass has about 30 stairs so it sucks having to go up and down constantly.

There is a lot of talk about shit here. Literally. Our bathrooms and showers are always nasty but I won't go into details. To add to the nastyness there are cockroaches in the kitchen. So, although the stairs to the 5th floor suck, they are at least a bit helpful at controling that problem on my floor.

Final thought: It is neat meeting people here and learning they know people you know even though they are from the other side of the world.

PS. Although this week has been stressful and shall be for a bit longer, I am very excited to spend the year here. So far, so good!

Meat and Monaco

Meat: I tried it.
Monaco: You should try it.