Passively Social

I think that Paris is the most intensely and yet passively social place I have ever experienced. The city is essentially designed for people watching and the culinary and cultural experiences are structured in a way that everyone can watch each other. Walking down the street is like walking down a runway, partly because these women and men are dressed to the nines, flawlessly outfitted, and partly because you feel (justifiably) that you are being watched and judged in the same criteria. I half expect there to be a judges' table waiting at my front door. Well your outfit was good, not great, we give you an 8.3, but your air of mild disinterest and nonchalance is much improved, we give you a 9.1. If the pressure were not so unavoidably present it might start to weigh on you.

That's Paris. Dress the part. Act the part. Enjoy it, but be annoyed by tourists enjoying it. A lifestyle, but not a life. For that, I need some active social contact. A friend turned me on to the website meet up, which is basically like clubs for real people (indulge me in pretending that I am a real person). I have now been to three, and I have to say, they're awesome. Predictably, the social component is the hardest adjustment. Maybe it's not that predictable. But you learn how to act, you figure out the word for blueberry, you adapt to local grocery store behavior. There isn't a quick fix for "I don't know anyone within 1500 miles of me..." Maybe it would help if I used the local standard for measurement. C'Est la vie.

And this isn't a quick fix. I don't instantly have new best friends. But it is a solution. You get to hang out with good people who are passionate about something you're passionate about for a few hours. And whether it's just a band aid for the isolation or the first dose of a long term cure, it's a pretty solid way to spend an afternoon or evening.

Thursday, to celebrate the end of my first day of school, I joined a drawing Meet up on Ile st. Louis. I brought wine and madeleines and tried all manner of other French nosh as we enjoyed a picnic on the Seinne, sketching as the sun painted everything orange. I got to do something I enjoy (draw), in a way that I almost never get to do it (live action figure drawing), with a group of brand new supportive people. We ended by standing in a circle, passing to the left, and saying what we liked about the work we were holding. It was fabulous. Creative, fun, and affirming. And then I strolled home, eyeing the burnt Notre Dame, and studied French for 3 hours.

Today I went to another creative meet up, this time for writing. The group is called Shut Up and write, which sounds pretty antisocial, but it's this pretty cool concept where you work alone, but with people, for 30 minutes or so, and then you take a short break and eat and drink and gab. It's great. You get to hear about all these really cool projects and people and their thrilling lives and then you get to channel that creativity into your work. And it was in a shop called Anti Cafe, which is kind of what it sounds like. You pay by the hour, and then everything you want is free. Cookies, veggies, peanuts, teas, juices, cappuccinos, cafe cremes. That was basically my menu, and I only paid 7 Euro, which is less than I would have paid for two coffees at a cafe. And I got to eat fresh raw veggies! I feel so good.

A friend asked me what my least favorite part of Paris was so far, and I was proud that I didn't really have an answer. After a year of the hell of freelance life and part time work and suburban isolation, Paris really is a dream. And the hard stuff, the language and the social life and the rain, are all just part of the romantic adventure.

Shopping On Mars

Whenever my mom goes to a new country, or even sometimes just an out of the way place, she always finds a grocery store. Sometimes she will invent a need (aloe! Corn chips! Obviously together...) But more often it is just a kind of wander by and pop in kind of thing. It's her litmus test. Restaurants with translated menues and American media steryotypes can feed me all the lies they want, but this grocery store is going to be honest with me. How do you people live? Seriously. How does this all work?

And she finds out. How many American brands they stock. What kind of deals they have. What do they try to get you to impulse buy at checkout. How much does a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk cost. And we all leave a little bit better informed about the way the world beyond us works.

A noble pursuit, to be certain. But an exploratory mission that photographs a planet's atmosphere is not the same as landing on the surface.

And Houston, we have our problem. I'm going to say that over the past 8 days I have picked up 2 dozen or so, maybe more, French words and phrases. Unfortunately none of these words were butter, or blueberry, or milk. When do you don't speak French, how do you tell the difference between milk and creme?!? In short, you don't. You just go for it and hope for the best.

I moved in to my apartment (technically a rented room within someone else's apartment) on Wednesday just after noon. In addition to being a huge burden released, it was also an invitation to do my absolute favorite chore: shop. I needed a blow dryer. I wanted a thick graphite pencil for sketching. My key is completely naked and desperate for something adorable to cling to to prevent it getting lost in my bag. Bag. Singular. I want a new bag! How could I come to the fashion capital of the universe with one purse? Man plans; God laughs. Ammiright? Not quite. But you see what I'm getting at.

Ever since I committed to France I have had something else to live for besides the adrenaline surge of newly acquired clothing, so I've been very good. Everything I brought with me is something I already owned. No splurges. No extravagances. I was a good girl. But now, in Paris with literally nothing to do except breathe until school starts, how can you expect me not to wander in and out of the stores on Raspaille and St Michel and Bd St. Germaine as street jazz quartets belt Amy Whinehouse and Frank Sinatra at me. I am only so strong!

And for the most part I have been good. I really want a pair of shoes, but I've resisted, despite having visiting no fewer than 3 dozen shoes stores. I have been spending wisely and frugally and the success of that goal is a kind of reward unto itself. But as a standalone activity, as an exercise in orienting myself with a new culture and its standards, this shopping without buying may be the most fun I have had shopping...Ever.

Bon jour! Bon nuit! They say, welcoming me to the store. Bon jour! Bon nuit! I say back, in my terrible accent, thankful to them for letting me play along. I browse. I listen to snippets of French conversation. I try to pull apart the words. I fail. I move back to the street. Someone asks me what time it is. They could be asking me where I bought my face, for all I know, but they thought I was French! Magnifique!

It all feels very familiar, except for the part that I don't know what anyone is saying and there are all these unwritten rules that I don't know. It's solde, which is a semi annual sale that's like black Friday on crack but for a month and all the stores, especially the more popular ones, just look like diagrams of the circulatory system: everyone moving around in these big loops and then breaking off in to tangential loops for better access to shoes, coats, skirts, dogs, etc. But that's one thing. You pick up on it. But how close do I stand to the person in front of me in line? How friendly am I to the cashier. How close am I allowed to get to someone whose monopolizing a whole section of the wall? (Hint hint move over buddy)

I have no idea! And there's really no field guide to the thickets of Parisian retail grounds. But the whole thing feels remarkably like playing dress up. I was never particularly enamored with this exercise, but this feels like a more positive, thrilling version of that. I get to pretend that I live here. That I know what's going on. That this is the mango I always go to and I just can't bare the h&m on the champs Élysées. And the REALLY fun thing about this is that I do actually live here. And this is actually my neighborhood shopping. And I actually don't have an interest in submitting myself to the plebs on the champs Élysées. So all this browsing and exploring and discovering is actually way cooler than playing make believe, because it's actually true. My fantasy has come to life. The Kilo Shop is my first stop for anything apparel based. Rogier and Ple is my favorite and unparalleled art store. Market is my supermarket. And what a cleverly named super market it is.

So even though I have no idea what anyone is ever saying to me, I'm not even faking it until i make it, I'm just making it work. Bienvenue à moi chez.

Home Sweet Home

Because a picture's worth 1000 words. I don't think I've ever had a room with so few pictures. I totally buy into the native American belief that a photograph steals a part of your soul, but I think of it as an infinitesimal piece that allows me to have all of those I love close by. So, in conclusion, it's incredibly strange to have my two dozen photos in a drawer.

Putting the Reality Back into Reality Show

The past three days have been like a real life house hunters international episode. And let me assure you, the whole thing is less fun from the other side of the fourth wall. It all started on Friday when I went to the housing office at the Sorbonne, immediately after registration, and tried to find an apartment.  She was helpful and understanding, and, not really knowing how any of it worked, I was happy to have a single appointment on  Monday.
I slept very poorly and It was a disorienting morning as my hostess had to go to her summer cottage in Normandy to address a leak and I was left with her kind and patient but not-a-word of English speaking neighbor who asked me a series of questions which I had to use Spanish and Latin and logic to understand. Exhausting. But well deserved.

Anyway, apt #1:
Within walking distance of school
Private entrance
Private bedroom and bath (note en suite)
Kitchenette, with a coffeemaker! (That I don't really know how to use yet and that I share with the owner)

Sounds perfect, right? Well as I said, I was in a weird mood. And you know how I said that French people have a face for business and a face for life? Well I think she was giving me her business face. It all seemed cold and not quite right and, frankly, inhospitable. Not a place I'd love to live. And I just didn't have anything to compare it to.

So I went back to the office and found #2 and #3. And for a passing moment there was a #4 but it was a 7 floor walk up maids room, which I'll explain in a moment, and the owner would only rent for a minimum of a year. Wasn't really ready to make that commitment since as of right now my visa is only for 7 months.

#2
A maids room in the 16th, just across the sienne from the Eiffel tower. You take an alley off a beautiful sloping boulevard to a lift which takes you up 7 stories and then you walk up the last flight and find yourself in a yellowed hallway with a million doors and you open it up and, oh look, there's the Eiffel tower filling my window. It's like a joke. I'm sure that this is where Pixar looked for inspiration for the chef's apartment. But it's basically half the size. It's roughly the size of my mom's walk in closet, probably a little smaller, and going clockwise from the door, let's call that 5 o'clock, you have cot, shower at 9, jutting into the room, table, plastic stool, window with view of Eiffel tower at 12, sink that's roughly the size of a little tykes sink, glorified hot plate, cabinet at 3, back to the door. I was so shocked by the size that I didn't have time for colorful experimentation, but I don't think that there would have been room for me to do a snow angel on the floor. Maybe with the cot at my feet and the window at my head I could have laid out with my arms stretched up into a straight line, which now sounds like it's not a line but an arrow imploring me to jump. Jump out of the window. I think it would have taken very little time for me to go very crazy in that hovel. But what a view.

#3
an interesting option. I would have paid $650 for the summer basically to look after her house. But I wasn't really allowed to use the kitchen. And my "bedroom" was more of an office or studio. No closet. And she spoke about as much English as I spoke French, which is a problem mostly because she would have had trouble giving me instructions. She said it would not work. I said "d'accord." Which may have been perfect or may have just confirmed her wary opinion of me.

So in the end there was really no choice. And thanks to my science of happiness course I knew that that was an easy route to contentedness. Not a word. But anyway, I knew this was my best, and to some extent, only option. The office had helped me. My goddess of a b&b host had helped me. And it seemed that there was no solution better than the one at hand. Voilà. Happy.

That of course isn't how it really went down. Instead, despite knowing the above, I freaked out and looked for all these other places, which in turn confirmed my choice. And the biggest surprise of all came when I dropped off the deposit. Remember the two faces? Well this time I definitely got the social one. She was friendly and loving and welcoming and kind. Total 180. It was so strange and, honestly, such a delightful cosmic gift that I left her home, now my temporary home, so light that I felt as if I could float away.
You know when something weighs in you so heavily but so slowly that you don't even realize it's been crushing you until it is gone? That's finding an apartment in Paris.

Rough Day

Today, as an end of day treat, I sat in jardin de Luxembourg on my way home and enjoyed a few chapters of Peter Heller's new book to the tune of a fountain, crunching gravel, and idle chatter.

I am interrupted by a man chattering at me in French. Sorry, sir, I don't speak French. The implication being, I'm not interested. Not how he took it.

He tried again in English. "I am a student at the college of medicine. I want to practice my special skill. Can I give you a free foot massage?"

Umm...what? "Please I need to practice can I practice on you" swivel for candid camera. Not there.

Embarrassed. Confused. But polite: oh...no...sorry, no thank you.

Strange man with plastic bag trots away disappointed.

And that pretty much sums up the mood of my day. I'm hoping that all of today's big problems will be resolved tomorrow and I can fill you in then.

The City of Paradoxes

Today I went for an ice cream with a family friend whom I was meeting for the first time (I'll refrain from boring you with the actual definition of our relationship) and I got a much desired earful on everything Parisian and French. Two recurring, helixed themes of the chat were the sacred life/work balance for the French and the public/private persona of the French.

These ideas don't require much explanation, but in the name of due dilligence, there is an ongoing debate about working on Sundays here. Is it an infringement on worker's rights to ask them to spend their Sundays in the service of others? There is tension between the socialist ideals and the capitalist reality. "If you want worker's rights, don't complain for lack of business," says logic. Following from this worker oriented train of thought, the service, in general, is less consumer oriented. Why should a fully grown man smile and nod and coddle you for an extra fifty cents? This is just a job. And while he may be the most affectionate, doting uncle to his darling g niece and nephew, you do not call upon that part of his identity as an American with an aggressively bad french accent.

An interesting group of thoughts, but definitely not the only paradoxes that capture the contrast of the idea of Paris and it's reality (which is the biggest paradox of all). Much of the romance of Paris, for me and I'm sure for many others, is all of the art that has been forged here. Whether it was dancing or painting or writing or pretending to be s statue until someone drops a Euro into your hat, it is a city that conceptually embraces the creative. And the city seems to embrace that legacy as part of its appeal. But in reality, institutionally at least, it rejects the outsider. The student visa was the most trying travel experience I have ever had. Imagine trying to actually move her...start a life. The city, at least, operates on the premise of permanancy. You can not rent unless you have a French bank account, a history of residency, a wealthy guarantor. How do you get those things without renting? I can't even get a monthly metro pass without a letter, national identity card copy, and electric bill from my landlady. 

I can't imagine that it was always this hard to get going. Otherwise,  why would all of those creative types from fin de siècle settles here? The only remaining explanation that I have is that Paris is a city that rewards the struggling. You bumble through but ultimately find yourself lifted by a view of Notre Dame at sunset or the elegance of a side street artistically spaced with patisseries and pedestrians and mopeds. It is the sense I get in most cities: If I'm going to miserable no matter what, why not be miserable here? There is a comfort in the constant rumbling of cars and buses,  the rattling of the metro under foot, the chirping of birds outside 4th floor walk up windows. But perhaps the smell of fresh bread, the wafting aural aroma of that guttural Parisian "R," the wrought iron balconies and flowerboxes and craftsmanship at ever turn, perhaps they all combine to allow Paris greater success than most cities at making urban anonymity feel like a club house, one where only the cool kids are allowed to hang out and, look at that, you made the cut.

Enchanté Paris

As romantic as sending bits of my journey to friends and family one line at a time sounds, I do not think that I'm presently capable of such inefficiency. So...comment se dice en français quarter for your thoughts? Don't expect epic soliloquoys or life affirming lessons. Think more along the lines of anecdotes and misadventures.

But to kick off the reboot, I have arrived in Paris. I've been here for just over 36 hours. With the help of every form of transportation known to man and 3 kindly strangers I made it my b&b. I have spent the past almost 36 hours registering for my French classes, scheduling an appointment to view a potential apartment, and walking everywhere within walking distance of where I'm staying. I do have a local SIM card, but I don't have a blow dryer. Some errands will just have to wait. I made it through the day in a white dress with zero stains and only 2 marilynn Monroe moments (by which I obviously mean that subway grates blew my dress up and potentially exposed my underwear to the throngs of plebs on the sidewalk, NOT that I had a sexy, flirty, charming moment on the streets of Paris).

I've basically been hitting up the gardens of Paris. I still have a week until classes start, so I'm trying to save the big museums that I didn't get to hit last time until I run out of free things to do. The weather is beautiful, so it's not all that demanding to walk around the city for hours on end.

It is almost eleven and there is still some day light in the sky. What a strange place I've come to.