the bing mafia

It was the weekend we had all been waiting for: Bing Trip weekend. A weekend of culinary extravagance and cultural overdose, of castles and 7:30 wake up calls. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Bing family, they are Stanford grads who made their fortune in real estate and revolutionized the Overseas Studies Program. They pay for all of the students in all of the overseas programs to go somewhere in the country they're staying in for a weekend and have an eye-opening cultural experience. We paid 25 euros - they paid for 6 huge meals, lodging, and airfare. Not a bad deal?

Carcassonne is a small city in Southern France that they've kept in medieval condition - we stayed in the Hotel de Donjon (=dungeon) and walked on cobblestone streets around 12th century cathedrals for 2 nights. Then this morning, we drove to Toulouse, where we toured the Airbus 380 factory (the huge, huge planes - Dad was very excited about this) and wandered around the city.

It was really fun getting to know the other Stanford students better - we've had a few weeks to meet and greet, but staying in the same hotel sort of forced closeness. We got a little tired of the guided tours, but it was an amazing weekend overall. See for yourself!

Night of arrival:




The Carcassonne Cathedral (we're freezing here):



Castles from hither to yon:





Toulouse (if you can't tell, Natalie and I are saints here):

kickin' it with the deceased

It got really cold really quickly here these last few days. Not only cold, but smattered with rainstorms that come out of nowhere and make your hair frizzy. The horror! We've managed to carry on despite the weather.

Today, Chloe and I decided to go to Père Lachaise cemetery, where all kinds of famous people are buried and a whole lot more notsofamous people are ingraciously stepped over to get to the famous people's graves. I can't decide whether I'd like to be buried there or not. On the one hand, I'd get to hang out with people like Apollinaire, Molière, Edith Piaf, Modigliani, and Chopin for the rest of time. On the other, I would probably get squashed in some corner (the cemetery is huge and PACKED. I cant believe they even try fitting more people in there) and forgotten about. Chloe and I were also wondering how one gets to be buried there. Maybe there's a waiting list, like getting married at MemChu. Perhaps I can be cremated and some of my remains can be scattered around Père Lachaise? In any case, I hope I don't have to worry about that for a long, long, long time.

Cemetery kind of day, don't you think?


Rockin' out with Jim Morrison:


Kisses to Oscar Wilde:


The Preeminent Proust Scholar in the Nation:


Bing Trip to Carcassonne this weekend! Get ready for the life of luxury...

write a novel / just to save the world

After reading Life of Pi, the stuffed fox in my room has taken on somewhat of a new character - he's a lot friendlier looking, especially in comparison to the 450-pound tiger lurking in my imagination. Devouring a book will do that to you. I started it Sunday and finished it this evening - haven't done that in forever. It felt awesome. It's amazing how school can ruin reading, even reading for pleasure. I bought Life of Pi at a used bookstore called San Francisco Books, then bought Lonesome Dove at Berkeley Books across the street (my next read - the bookstore owner laughed a lot when I bought it, and I assume my parents will too. I guess they turned the book into a cheesy Western TV series? I don't care as long as it's exciting). For future reference, I recommend Berkeley Books, right next to the Odéon metro stop on rue Monsieur le Prince - it's better organized and the owner is really chill. He's actually from Berkeley, if that's any illumination.

This evening I had a first round interview for an internship at the Gap that I'm dying to get, and as a result, I wasted away the entire day either trying to prepare for the interview (obsessing over questions like, what is my greatest weakness? where do I see myself in 10 years? do I have any questions for them? aaugh) or coming up with ways not to think about the interview (i.e., reading Life of Pi and trying to find cheap travel to various destinations around Europe. Sara wants to go to Amsterdam.) The interview went really well though - keep your fingers crossed for me.

On the docket for tomorrow: Paris En Couleur exhibit at the Hotel de Ville, or perhaps an nice long cafe visit, with Conan, and in the evening, an alumni meet and greet complete with champagne and a Galette de Roi - a delicious almondy cake only made around this time of year. Thursday I'll be going to the theater with my language partner... should be interesting, to say the least.

the plight of the sunday meal

I found where all the Parisians go on Sundays: Parc Monceau, and they bring their dogs, children, and lovers to keep them company while they "jog." No joke, I saw all of the following during my 3 loops:
- Two women, walking briskly in fur coats around the loop, chain-smoking cigarettes
- Three men stretching along the benches for the entire duration of my run
- A couple in full exercise gear, jogging (or I should probably say galavanting, or frolicking, because their movement was simply too joyous for simple jogging) while holding hands and stopping every once in a while to make out.

Sunday meals are a little harder to come by than every other day because everything closes. I got talked into buying a kilo of strawberries (a kilo=2.2 pounds. yikes) for 5 euros and ate dim sum. You can usually count on the ethnic places to be open. But where do the Parisians eat who don't cook on Sundays? Maybe all of them cook...

Today in my French class we learned a ton of slang words used by young French people. They're really big on inversing words - like our version of abbreviations? For example, musique (music) becomes zikmu, or just zik, and femme (woman) becomes meuf (not exactly derogatory, but not complementary either).

Before I run to get coffee with Sara, one quick side note: there will be no more listening to iPod while walking around Paris. I see French people do it all the time, so I thought I was fitting in, but this may not have been the case.

I'm getting a cold, slowly but surely... bah humbug.

ten day forecast of sunshine

Goodness, these last two days have been absolutely beautiful here, and the ten day forecast only shows one day of rain. One!

Yesterday, after my art history class at the Louvre, I wandered over to the Latin Quarter to meet Sara for falafels and book shopping. Though she ended up ditching me to have lunch with her cute language partner, I still did everything on my to-do list. Remember the post about the best falafels ever? Nix that - these were even better, because for 4.40, you got a pita full of falafel and a full salad bar with which to fill the rest of the pita (olives, carrots, beets, sauces, lettuce, etc). Anyway, it's called Maoz, and it's on Rue de la Huchette.

Next I hung out in Shakespeare and Company bookstore for a couple hours trying to find a book to buy. I'm hungry for a good book - I just finished Paris to the Moon, and my bedtimes feel empty. I want a good book, not necessarily a "classic," but one that I won't get bored of after 100 pages and doesn't require an English professor to explain to me. Anyway, the employees at Shakespeare and Co. were baffled by my demands for a list of some of their favorite books (imagine a small brunette British girl saying, "Well, gosh, I cahn't really pick, you know... I cahn't give you any suggestions unless I know what some of your favourite books ahre...") I ended up getting so overwhelmed that I didn't buy anything. Maybe next time.

Last night we met up to celebrate Maggie's birthday, and ended up drinking cheap wine on the bank of the Seine till we got too cold and tired. Apparently half of the group had been clubbing till 6 AM the night before and (if you can imagine) weren't in top form, but it was still really fun.

For lunch today, we went to the market on Rue Cler in the 7th and (with astonishingly good teamwork that warmed the crevices of my heart) bought bread, cheese, meat, fruit, and veggies and had ourselves a picnic on the lawn outside of the Ecole Militaire, surrounded by lively games of bocce ball and tons of people playing soccer. We then walked about an hour over to the Notre Dame area to get "the best ice cream in the world," according to Paul, called Berthillon's. I have to admit that I think Graeter's is better, but this was pretty good - I got two (tiny) scoops of ice cream, one ginger bread and the other nougat with honey.

Then comes the bad part of my day (it can't be all great, can it?): I decided to walk home, since by this time it was about 5 and I had dinner plans with Natalie and it was such a lovely evening. I guess I underestimated how long it was going to take me, because about an hour later, I was still walking, and by then I was moderately cold and it was getting dark and I didn't feel like walking anymore. About 6 blocks away from home, walking on a fairly busy street with my iPod headphones on, this man walking towards me on the sidewalk swerves in as we cross paths and smacks me in the head and pushes me into the building. I screamed, he glared at me, and we both kept walking. Once I realized that I was not hurt and not in danger, I burst into tears and cried the whole rest of the way home. Overreaction? Certainly, but it was more of a realization that this is a big city and people don't play by the rules - a couple well-placed blows and I could've been knocked cold, purseless, and no one else would have been there. It's the things you know in theory that you don't think ever actually happen, I guess. Anyway, it wasn't a big deal and I'm over it, but I think I'll start taking the metro around dusk next time.

On a lighter note, pictures!

At Don Quichotte:


Picnic and a pretty day:

bisoux to the neighbors

Well let's see. Tuesday night, we saw Don Quichotte contre L'Ange Bleu - a musicomedie starring some really famous lead actress. I don't think I understood most of it because it wasn't very funny, though Natalie assured me that even if I had, I probably wouldn't have thought it was very funny unless I was French. The lead actress looked WAY younger in all the promo ads than she did in real life, and we were all scandalized by how skinny she was.



Today, Chloe left for London, so I've got the whole place to myself! How do you say "rager" in French? No, just kidding. In fact, we got a lovely note from our downstairs neighbors asking us to "PLEASE not make ANY noise after 10:30 because SOME of us have to work in the morning. Thanks!" Psh. The thing is, we don't make that much noise. The simple act of walking around up here is creaky as hell, but we don't make a point to jump up and down or listen to music or take baths or talk above a whisper after 9:30, as requested. We've really been making a conscious effort since we got the note, so if they still can't sleep, I'll send them a little note saying something along the lines of: "We have taken your concerns into consideration, however, we've decided that there is simply no more we can do for you other than offer these two pairs of earplugs. No need to repay us - consider it a gift from your upstairs neighbors. Bisoux!"

I have my first expose tomorrow on a portrait by Ingres - 5 minutes in French, shouldn't be too big of a deal, but I'm still a little stressed about it.

More Brussels pictures - you'll notice the Little Peeing Boy fountain and La Grand Place:




On a final note, kudos to my mom for ziplining in South America! What a pro.

the happiest place on earth - no, not disneyland...

It's BRUSSELS! Who would have thought that Brussels, low on my list of cities to see in Europe, could have turned out to be so wonderful? I really loved the people and the food - everyone was so generous and friendly and didn't point out that I wasn't Parisian, and tasting a real Belgian waffle comes close to touching the divine.

We arrived on Friday evening, picked up by Natalie's family friend Henri. Though we were supposed to stay at his place, there wasn't enough room, so he put us up in a four-star hotel in the middle of Brussels. Not a bad introduction to a city, especially for four broke college students. We then went to the bar/cafe next door, and though they weren't technically serving food anymore, they heated up some homemade lobster bisque for us and let us sit for as long as we wanted. Natalie said we had to drink Belgian beer, so we tried all sorts of varieties (as long as they were light and/or fruity. yum!).

Saturday, we saw all the touristy sites - the Grand Place and the Little Peeing Boy Fountain (?), then went out to dinner and a movie with Henri. (You might be asking - why a movie? Well, the movie theater we went to was in itself a national landmark - IMAX-size screens, right next to this huge public art piece of an oxygen atom that lights up at night. Also, we were too tired to do anything else). We saw National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which warmed our little America-deprived hearts and souls. Unfortunately, Henri also bought us about two pounds of candy - totally unnecessary, but so fun.

Sunday, we ate at Le Pain Quotidien - incredibly good breakfast, and wandered around some more with Henri. Unfortunately everything is closed on Sundays, so when we finally got on the train that evening, we felt ready to go back to the busy streets of Paris, where, if anything, there's too much to do. I'm also glad I left when I did - another week and I would've gained 50 pounds. The waffles would have been worth it, though - they're shaped sort of like "Belgian waffes" that you get at any old breakfast place, but they're doughier and sweeter, sometimes dipped in a little caramel or chocolate, delicious enough on its own.

Oh yes, and did I mention Belgian chocolate? I wanted to buy some for people at home, but I was worried that it would go bad by the time it got there.

Pictures!




The Belgian waffle truck. (how waffle!)


Chocolate, anyone?


More pictures later - my internet does not seem to want to cooperate. Au revoir!