Métro 6

Today my father and I went out to our old apartment at Denfert-Rochereau to pick up our mail and took the 6 back.  The Métro has something like fourteen lines, but the 6 is my favourite.  Taking the 6 from Denfert-Rochereau to Place d'Italie means that you're aboveground for most of the trip, high over the roads on aqueduct-like arches, coming into stations like Glacière made of delicately curving steel and glass panes above the trains.  I love the elegance of Parisian industrialism, the arabesques of iron beams and the many-paned glass roofs.  Somehow the French have made it into a combination of functionality and light, and it's lovely to just ride the train, hands full of mail from the States, and look out the window at the shining city.
(photo from here)

Ladurée

Occasionally we all need special treats.  And occasionally we disguise these special treats as gifts for our dearest friends and family.  I'm guilty of doing this on multiple occasions - once I got one of my best friends to come with me to see Julius Caesar at the ART (and the academic dean saw us there with his wife and thought we were dating, but that's a story for another time) and another time I took Ursula to Ladurée and another time (today) I took Caleb to the same place.
For those of you who haven't been, Ladurée is a haven of green-and-gold Parisian opulence on the Champs-Élysées with delicious tea and macarons.  As my darling brother is a bit of a connoisseur about his tea, it's a pretty good place to take him.  And, since we don't hang out just us as often as we should, his birthday present/special occasion/present to me is always a good time to do so.  It was lovely to see my brother make a face of amazed happiness as he bit into an orange-flower macaron and another of mock-outrage when a woman answered her cellphone and proceeded to have a loud conversation (in English) while having tea with someone else.  And it was really nice to walk with him there and back and just talk.  We talked about everything - books we had both read, how we're not ready to go back to America, our first memories of houses and places we'd been.  I highly, highly recommend Ladurée as a place to "take someone out" to talk and drink good tea and eat delicious pastries in a Belle Époque setting.
Thank you so much, Caleb!  We should go again soon...
(photo from here)

Masks with Ursula

Yesterday my darling sister and I went to BHV to buy some cardboard masks and glitter and the like...
And this was the result!

Ursula made this beautiful colourblock one with sequins....

And I make this papier-mâché one with some white paint and a coat of glittery glue.

They're beautiful, right?  Such a lovely project for a rainy day and it was so lovely to hang out with my little sister and do something together.  They looked like Russian princesses to me and I know that when I look at my mask I'll remember that lovely afternoon of painting and giggling and trying on our half-finished projects.  

Thank you, Ursula!

Verbs!

So today I tried to go register for two weeks of classes at the Alliance Française before I return to the US, but they were full for this week, so I guess I'm on my own for a couple days.
Which brings me to my main point: French verbs that they don't teach you in school but turn out to be useful.
In high school and at the Sorbonne, we went over the Important Verbs: être (to be) and avoir (to have) were the two big ones, with faire (to do) and mettre (to put) and prendre (to take) and then random ones like venir (to come) and danser (to dance) to remind you of the verb endings.  But there are really cool ones that they never teach you until you're reading a book meant for French twelve-year-olds and realize that you don't know ANY of the words and then go look them up and you're amazed at how quickly your world in French grows, because people actually use these.  Like bouder, which means "to sulk."  To sulk!   Or hurler - to howl.  On one hand, there's no reason to go over "to sulk" in any grammar class, but on the other - now you know how to say that someone's sulking or howling.  How cool is that?

Fireworks

Last night we went to Montparnasse to see the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower (the closest we could get) and they were amazing!  I hadn't seen proper fireworks in years and yesterday they were incredible - it was kind of scary at first, when the tower went black and nothing happened for a couple minutes, and then they really started in earnest.
This weekend, now that my father's home, we'll hang out and maybe hit the Soldes (still going on - yay!) and see the flea markets out by the periphery!
Happy weekend, blog readers!
(photo from here)

Happy Bastille Day!

Hello, blog readers!
Today marks the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison by an impoverished population that wasn't too keen on the bit where Versailles was eating off of gold plates and they had no bread.
Today in Paris there is a parade down the Champs-Élysées, fireworks at the Eiffel Tower, and firemen's balls all over the city (that's the part I'm excited about).  It's a little sad, since my father won't be back in Paris until tomorrow, but I'm quite excited!
Do you guys celebrate Bastille Day?

Bastille Day

I recently realized (and by recently I mean "this morning, when I actually looked at a calendar for the first time in a while") that Thursday is Bastille Day!  I have to say, I'm super-excited.  I haven't seen fireworks in God knows how long (um, that'd be about three years) and it's kind of incredible that I'm in Paris, living just blocks away from the Bastille, for Bastille Day.
So my darling brother and I are trying to put together a dinner (for Friday, because my father won't be back from the States until then) that epitomizes Frenchness and summertime and... any suggestions?

Our New Home

Today has been spent slowly exploring our new neighborhood!  We have a lovely book by Thirza Vallois called "Around and About Paris" that talks about the history, easily fusing the Paris of the past and the Paris of the present.  For example, the Knights Templar were really the "founding fathers" of the 3rd - I had no idea that their temple sat at the site where I watched an outdoor concert on Friday, or that a Queen's lover lived on the street where I buy bread in the  morning!  I highly recommend the book, which comes in volumes, to anyone interested in Parisian history.

Now that I have only a month left in Paris, I am amazed at what I get to see every day.  Every street corner has a fountain or a statue; every door is crooked or brightly painted or set with a giant brass knob the size of my head.  Beautiful stained glass and elaborate lettering herald the boulangerie that smells delicious when you walk by; even getting on the Métro here means descending steps beneath a fairy-tale Art Nouveau sign.  I am worried that Cambridge, for all of its charms, might not live up to its predecessor.

(photos of thistles in a pretty blue jar inside the apartment, and the inexpertly shot view from my parents windows, both by me)

Exploring the New Neighbourhood

This morning I got up early and wandered my new home, the third.  No one was up - it was about nine - and the streets were oddly silent, with only a couple of commuters and homeless people.
Usually I'm really self-conscious about taking pictures in the city (I don't like to be thought of as a tourist) but today I did manage to take some photos, so here are a couple pictures from my morning wanders....

This is the gate to the Marché des Enfants Rouges, so called because of the orphans dressed in red who once lived near here.  Later in the day, it's full of people doing their shopping in the covered market, maneuvering between the fruit stands and the poissonerie.  

And this is the flower shop just inside the gate....

Enjoy your morning!

Fake It 'Til You Make It?

Do I pretend to be a real Parisian?
Oh yes.
But at this point, five months and five days in, don't I count?
Maybe?  Just a bit?
After all, I do a lot of the things on this list that Flavorwire put out.
So... do you pretend to be a Parisian?

(Clock from the Musée d'Orsay)

Moving Day! And Rome

Today is actually moving day!  And yesterday both my mother and my darling sister came home from the United States and Rome, respectively.  My mother came home with her brand-new computer, which I have had lots of fun playing with and setting up (it's her first Mac ever!) and my little sister came home with stories and a snowglobe and presents for the rest of us (I got a scarf.  It's gorgeous.  Thank you, Urs!).
In the meantime, have you been checking out Prêt à Voyager's Tour de France feature?  She finds bloggers who live all over Paris and get them to talk about their arrondissements.  For anyone interested in the city, I HIGHLY suggest checking it out.  I've lived here for five months now and I don't know a fifth of the stuff her writers put in their posts.  It's a way to experience the city through new eyes, and if you're like me and constantly in the mindset for travel, it's perfect.  Today she talked to I Heart Paris about the 18th - Montmartre - go check it out!

Moving

I'm not very good at moving.  I hate re-packing our things up in the huge duffel bags we took to Africa with us, I hate leaving places that were once home that we don't get to visit anymore.
Even though our apartment here in Paris is a little austere, it's been my home for the past five months.  I've sat in it alone for the first few days, cramming for the French exam and turning all the lights on at night so I wouldn't feel so small in a place that fits five people.  I'm sitting in it now, looking out the French doors onto the balcony and the sycamores that line Denfert-Rochereau.  I've cooked in its tiny kitchen and eaten in the dining room with friends and family; I have played the piano that Chopin apparently loved (not our piano, just this type of piano) and listened while people better than me (my brother and father and sister) played.
This little neighborhood, this slice of the fourteenth reaching into the sixth, has become my neighborhood.  I know the bakery girls at Thévenin on Rue Daguerre, I have taken my darling sister unicycling in the Jardin du Luxembourg and the little parks around our house.  I have walked up and down Raspail and Denfert-Rochereau a thousand times, to and from classes and lunches.  I have gone running in the Jardin du Luxembourg, feet splashing in puddles on wet days and kicking up gravel and dust on dry ones.  I know the 4 and 6 Métro lines and the RER.
Now we are moving all the way across town, to Jobic's house, and I have a whole new neighborhood to discover.  I will meet new bakery girls at the new bakery where we get our hot bread in the mornings and new running routes in new parks or along the river.  I will have a new Métro line and a new station, and a new bedroom looking out on a different view.  There are some places I kind-of know in the Marais: my darling brother Caleb adores the Café des Musées which is just down the street from the new house, and I love Le Loir Dans Le Théière on Rue des Rosiers.  I have not seen so many parks, but that just means longer runs to green places and better shape.  I am excited, but at the same time it's sad to leave this high-ceilinged apartment and the people we know.

Rive Gauche Girl?

I've always considered myself a Rive Gauche Girl.  The crazy writers (Joyce, I'm talking about you), the culture, the hats and students and cafés all seemed like they would become an extension of me when we moved here, a very real part of my life.  The two times I visited Paris before we came here to live, I stayed on the Left Bank in apartments or little hotels, and when by a crazy stroke of luck we snagged this apartment, it was also on the Left Bank - the fourteenth, to be exact.  But in a couple of days we have to move.
My brother's hero/piano teacher and my father's friend Jobic has generously rented his apartment to us for July while he lives elsewhere in the city, so for the last month of our Paris experience, we are living in the Marais.  The third, to be exact, on the other side of the bank.  From July the first until August first when we return to Boston, I will be a Rive Droite Girl.
So here's my question: is there really such a difference between the third and the fourteenth?  I mean, other than the proximity of the Jardin du Luxembourg and the little parks around our apartment, other than the fact that we currently live almost exactly at Place Denfert-Rochereau and the fact that the third is probably way chicer.  When you've been in Paris, which bank have you stayed on?

Menagerie

This morning my darling sister and I visited the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes.  Honestly, it was the first time that I'd been in a zoo since I was little and we went to the Knoxville Zoo almost every time we visited my grandparents.
The menagerie is pretty amazing.  We visited a five-month-old baby monkey named Columba who might have been the most adorable thing I've ever seen, a snow leopard couple, the red pandas, and the kangaroos.
Have you been to the zoo/menagerie lately?  Or, like me, was the last time you went about ten years ago?  What did you think?

Sometimes There Is Magic

Magic little things that you'd forget if they didn't jump in front of you, that you wouldn't notice if they weren't there under your feet.  But there is still magic.
Going back from the Marais today with my father, we switched from Métro 1 to the RER at Chatelet and came across a chamber group playing Handel's "Water Music" in the station.  There were something like five violins, a cello, an upright bass, and a viola, and they were excellent.  A crowd had gathered, and the group - obviously good enough to be playing at way better venues than the subway - made it wound totally captivating.  The way three different violin parts rose and fell, intertwining in harmonies, the cello was sublime, the whole thing together....
Just magic

(violin from here)

Good Morning, Blog Readers!

Now it is officially summer!  Or is it the second half of summer?  I'm always confused if June 21st is the first day of summer or midsummer, because summer is grouped around the longest day in the year.  Oh, well - it's summer!
Yesterday night my family went out after dinner to explore La Fête de la Musique.  Let me just say - French people singing "Sweet Home Alabama" and "The Wind Cries Mary" aren't things I'm likely to forget anytime soon - combine that with the sweet taste of mango-and-passionfruit gelato (try it!) and it was in some ways the perfect Parisian summer night.
How was your shortest night of the year?

I didn't mean to be late

But I got waylaid by a Scottish brass band in the Jardin du Luxembourg.
Ah, Fête de la Musique, how I love you.
Paris streets filled with sunshine and music...
Happy Summer Solstice!

Fête de la Musique

Today is the twenty-first of June (the summer solstice) and in Paris, that means only one thing: the fête de la musique.  Tonight tons of groups play free concerts in public places, all day and into the night.  I'm super excited; some are happening right outside my flat and others are spread across the city.  Here's the website, if you're interested....
Does your city do something like this?

My Paris: Rue Daguerre

Just around the corner from where I live with my family in the fourteenth is Rue Daguerre - a market street full of life, and one of the places that I had to visit almost immediately after my incredible trip with the amazing Alexandra to remind myself that I was home.  Cobblestones shining in the rain, the twenty or so shops that line the mainly pedestrian street, the shopgirls who know me - it all hits home the fact that I live in Paris.
Personally, my favourite place to go for fruit and vegetables (there are three or so shops) is Paradis de Fruits, charmingly full of haricots verts and oranges, and where we bought the best strawberries I have ever tasted in my entire life.
My father goes out every morning to Thévenin to buy our morning bread and croissants.  It is without question the best bakery near our house, so good that after school little children line up with their allowance to buy éclairs and macarons and on Sundays a line stretches out every morning.  However, it is closed on Wednesdays, in which case the bakery on the corner isn't bad either.
Rue Daguerre is also home to Café d'Enfer, really one of the best places I have ever eaten but out of an every-day price range, so it is our special-occasions restaurant.  I highly highly suggest the lentil cappuccino in winter as an appetizer, and the p'tit d'enfer as a desert.
I hope you enjoyed this little taste of Paris!

(photo from here)

Back in Paris (Also, Family)

I am in Paris once more!  After a fairytale week in the UK with the ever-lovely Alexandra (more on that later, I promise), I have returned to Paris just hours ahead of my extended family!
My uncle, aunt, and cousin from Tennessee have come to see Paris (it's my cousin's second time out of the country) and we are so happy to have them!  Today we've walked through Paris with them, and it's always exciting to see the city from the eyes of someone new - all the buildings, the shining streets, the curving silver spine of the Seine...
Welcome, family, and Alexandra, I miss you already!