this posting promises to be a super-long one; i have a few hours to kill on the internet, and honestly there's a lot that could be said. as with the previous post, i'm writing from a tiny, nearly inaccessible computer lab in the sorbonne which katya had to log me into before running off to the class i made her super-late for. despite some fairly explosive spring allergies that seem to be completely unresponsive to antihistamines, i continue to have an amazing time. we've been walking a solid god-knows-how-many hours per day, so my feet gleefully ache away while my thighs and abs turn rock hard. i'll try to keep this post to the most pertinent of anecdotes, while still not making it just a list.
amazing foods i've tried since being in paris:
- pain au chocolat
- street-vendor crepes (you all know i can't resist)
- an entire kg of fresh strawberries
- really, really good fresh eggs
- fresh raw fennel
- numerous varieties of amazingly fresh baklava
- baguette better than i could ever have imagined
- vietnamese porc au caramel
- some of the most flavourful falafel i've ever had (ha; 'flavourful falafel')
- tons of fresh black grapes and dates
- raspberry tart
- croissant au monde (croissant filled with almond slices, almond paste and dusted with icing sugar)
Galleries I've seen so far:
- Petit Palais
- Musée Rodin
- Musée Picasso
- the art vendors surrounding Place à vosges
Notable aspects of Paris and Parisians:
- the cars are *tiny*. It's really refreshing.
- don't hug unless it's just before or after sex. Offer 2 cheek kisses between women or between women and men; a handshake between men. This goes for kids and teens as well.
- emphasis is added two speech by making use of any of a wide variety of very particular mini-exhalations. These should be inserted in places where anglophones would normally say 'hm', 'um', 'i don't know', 'can you believe that?', 'i sympathize', 'i'm tired', 'shit! fuck!', etc.
Let's see...where to start with the anecdotes?
Katya took me to the Mosquée du Patris, a gorgeous long white mosque with pale green shingles and dark brown trim. There we lounged in their cloistered café, inside the ornately guilded and tiled main room but looking out through large open doors on the wide patio and the many 'branché' French people enjoying it. We drank sweetened mint tea and ate baklava and, as is appropriate to a Parisian café setting, discussed all things profound and deep - while making fun of the locals.
Katya earns her keep in her tiny studio apartment by babysitting for/offering her indentured servitude to the well-to-do lawyer couple living downstairs. This couple gave birth two gorgeous, completely unmanageable little boys, who Katya takes to the park every evening after school. On my second night in Paris, I met Katya in front of her building as she was dragging the kids back from the park. It had just started to rain. She looked completely pissed off. The kids refused to enter the building for a few minutes and when we got them in, the older one disappeared into the staircase. I took the elevator with the little one while Katya chased after the elder. When we all finally re-met in front of the kids' apartment, Katya said to me, 'I have a poisonous snake in my bag.' She proceeded to open her bag to reveal a viper in a glass jar. Apparently the kids' father, a real 'adventurer', had caught the snake with the kids in Nantes and had thought it would be great for the kids to bring to school for show-and-tell. Today Katya showed up at the school and the teacher told her it was time to take the snake home. So Katya was forced to carry a poisonous snake in a jar to a playground swarming with children while taking care of two misbehaving toddlers.
That evening, Katya took me to one of the places where she regularly eats dinner: a tiny, dark but warm-atmosphered Vietnamese pub filled with French students. We ordered cheap and filling large portions of warm food. In the bathroom, the radio begins to blast as soon as you turn on the light. The walls are lined with an eclectic collection of old books which may be borrowed at any time; the tiny wall TV plays karaoke and concerts from the 70's. The owner, a little Vietnamese man who cooks all the food in a closet-sized kitchen in the back, believes that sleep is not necessary if you spend your time doing good things for people (as both should give you the same energy), and so apparently never sleeps.
I bought a wheel of camambert for *2€*.
I had the pleasure of meeting Katya's Parisian friend, Laura, who said I'm the first real Canadian she's ever met. She walked both of us around for a couple hours, leading us to some gorgeous flower-filled gardens and through some of the trendiest streets.
I went twice, on two separate days, to Place des vosges - a park in the trendy Jewish/gay Marais neighbourhood. The first time, an entire string group of at least 10 serenaded us with Pachelbell's Canon; on the second, I got to stand and listen to a lone cellist accompanying a soprano to O Mio Babbino Caro and Ave Maria. Her voice was so pure and resonant that I was literally nearly in tears.
This may be my favourite anecdote so far. Yesterday morning, in the garden of the Musée Rodin, I called Przemek to make sure he'd still be able to meet me at the Dublin airport on Thursday. For those of you who don't know (which is probably few to none), Przemek was my Polish boyfriend who I met my first summer working in the camp kitchen, who was serious enough about me that we continued to date long-distance (Montréal to Poland and then Montréal to England when he moved) until the following December. We've corresponded periodically since and are on good terms, and we've been planning that I would come visit him in Dublin since at least February. Plus I told him the last time we talked (2 weeks ago?) that I would call him from Paris. So, I call him and he answers the phone. I say,
"Hello, is this Przemek?"
"Yeah, that's me."
"Hi, this is Sarah."
"Who?" (how many young women with North-American accents does he keep in touch with, anyway?)
"It's Sarah."
*long pause*
"Do you know who I am?"
"No..."
"It's Sarah Horowitz?"
*long pause*
"Oooooooh, yeah! Sorry!"
Ha. How soon we forget. I laughed SO HARD. He says he'll definitely meet me at the airport, but I'm still skeptical because he said "I'll see you in 2 days" when really, Thursday was at that point 4 days away.
Soooo that marks the end of this post. It feels like I'm writing an entire novel here, but I hope it's readable and interesting. I'm not sure if I'll post again before Dublin, and then I can let everyone know whether Przemek has completely lost his memory.
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