Trends in contemporary art, music, and clubs

I've been doing many things recently, especially meeting more French people from my classes. The classic stereotype that the French are cold to foreigners has some sense in that they haven't usually come up to me to talk, but once I've started conversations people have been very friendly. Everyone seems to want to come and study in New York for some stage in their education; Boston has elicited some recognition, but mostly people ask whether it's near NYC, and are very surprised by the fact that it's 4 or 5 hours driving distance away. (One girl asked me if Harvard was in Washington DC.)

Last week, I went with AYA to an contemporary music concert, which was an homage to the late Italian composer Luciano Berio. It consisted of original solo compositions for each of 13 instruments, which showed off the possibilities of each instrument, and some pieces by Berio himself. It was very experimental, and despite being intellectually interesting, it was grating on the ears after a while. My favorite piece featured the trombonist and started with him turning in a circle and saying "This... is definitely... a trombone" in English with a Portuguese accent, and later had him announcing flights of trombone fancy with inventive titles like "bubbling sulfurous water".

I saw Marie-Antoinette the other night, partly because of my continuing curiosity about my neighbor and partly because I wanted to see it. I really liked it- it was self-consciously frivolous, and portrayed the waste and cagedness of her position very nicely. No new news on that front.

I visited my old host family from my Winsor exchange to Paris in 10th grade the Saturday before last; they invited me over for a very nice lunch. It was great to reconnect with the entire family (they have three kids), and also reassuring to learn that not much had changed, except that the kids had become more mature. Marie-Philippine (who is a year younger than me) told me some interesting stories about her lycee, and later in the week she came over here and we shared music on our computers and discussed good places to go around here. We have some differences in personality, but we get along very well.

On Friday night, Alexia from AYA had free tickets to go to a club on the Champs-Elysees, and I was curious and decided to check it out. The club (Club de Duke) is apparently pretty famous, because an hour or so after we arrived, the rapper P. Diddy's bodyguards started clearing the way for his entrance. And so, on my first time in a club, I got to meet P. Diddy. (It's a hard act to follow for any further club experiences.) I didn't have anything to drink, and was mostly observing the atmosphere, with its masses of scantily clad women and blinged-out men, really loud music, lots of grinding, and colored spotlights. It was cool to watch the DJ mixing the music. P. Diddy rapped a little bit, and then he was just dancing in the most exclusive part. After a lot of waiting, I finally got past the bouncers to try to talk to him, but I don't think he heard me. I don't exactly see the point in spending hours and hours in a club, but I had a pretty good time. Afterwards, I went back to Alexia's place, and we talked about French social class structure and how religion affects American politics, until the metro opened again at 6 AM and I could get back here. Needless to say, I'm still catching up on sleep.

Today I went to FIAC, a huge gallery exhibit where all the Paris and some NY and London galleries can expose their work and get more sales in the Grand Palais. Besides contemporary artists, some galleries had older works, including Picasso, Mondrian, Le Corbusier, and more, and it was interesting to see some of the new trends and ideas in art. Unfortunately I was only able to get in for an hour before it closed because my class ended late. But it was very cool. That's it for now!

Fans, rappers, termites, and the underworld

I saw a play tonight as part of the "cultural activities" section of the AYA program. It was Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan", performed in French as "L'eventail de Lady Windermere". (I think eventail sounds much more dignified than fan.) It was funny, and Wilde's digs on England, like "Does our fog cause people to be serious, or do our serious people cause the fog?" and "I need to leave England- the food is horrible.", gained new meaning when spoken by the French. A famous actress from the Comedie Francaise, Genevieve Casile, was guest starring in this production, and everyone applauded when she first appeared on stage in the middle of a scene, and gave her a huge ovation at the end. She was fantastic.

In general, I'm trying to get used to the work, and still switching around my classes a bit. In particular, I'm trying to learn the French system of taking notes, writing out "plans" of primary sources, and writing different types of essays and analyses. Everything has a very structured logic, which is nice because you know what's expected, but is also very rigid and a little hard to grasp at first. I've also been starting to run into the adult reality of bureaucracy and red tape. At least I know that if I can deal with this kind of junk in French, I'll be set when I get back to the U.S.

Last Sunday, after I updated, I went to a street culture festival called "Rue au Grand Palais". Rappers, graffiti artists, skateboarders, basketball players, and dancers filled a symbol of the old French monarchy. Ethnically, it was pretty diverse, including black people, arabs, and white people. I went with Alexia from AYA (who's black if it's relevant), and we saw a rap contest where the MC brought women up to sit on a throne on the stage and different rappers had to serenade them. Alexia raised her hand, and had a glowing rap devoted to her. I don't think I would have had the courage to do it, but it was great to see her up there. The best rappers, sadly not including Alexia's guy, got to advance to a rap battle, which was pretty furious. I have to say, rap can be hard for me to understand even in English, so I didn't get a lot of what was going on, but it was cool to see some of the "banlieue" culture in a positive way.

Other things: I saw three very good movies, each weird in its own way, this week: Miyazaki's "Nausicaa", an environmental parable with strange poisonous fungus forests and gigantic insects; The Besieged Citadel, a gripping nature movie with real footage of a termite colony defending itself against a carnivorous ant colony; and Jean Cocteau's "Le Sang d'un poete",
which I decided I liked after being at first thoroughly confused. I can't pass up anything that refers to Orpheus- ever since that fifth-grade Greek mythology report, I've felt like we've had a special connection.

Chateaux de la Loire

On Friday and Saturday, I went on an overnight trip to the Chartres cathedral and the Chateaux de la Loire. Specifically, I saw the opulence that is Chambord, Amboise, Azay-le-Rideau and Chenonceau. The chateaux served as hunting lodges for kings who wanted to take advantage of the wildlife in the lush Loire valley, and gifts to reward loyal ministers, royal mistresses, and famous artists like Leonardo da Vinci. The architecture is beautiful, and I got to see the classic four-poster beds, gilded furniture, tapestries, turrets, and royal accomodations that form the backdrop to my beloved fantasy books.

The four of us from AYA who had paid for the cultural component went on a small bus with 15 students from University of Delaware, who were pretty cool. They've been together on similar trips to Mont St-Michel and Normandie before, and are about halfway through their semester here, so they had a different point of view, and told many amusing stories about their travels (especially to Italy and Amsterdam). I'll see if I can stay in touch with some of them, but they all take classes with their university, so they have a different schedule. (Unfortunately the very cute boy kept talking about his French Canadian girlfriend.) I'm really glad I'm taking classes at the Sorbonne; it's a little disorienting, but I'm getting a taste of a real French education. I mostly hung out with the AYA people, especially Kelly, who was my roommate; we had a great time being silly together. She's taking two of the Sorbonne classes with me, too.

Being a typical tourist trip, we spent a lot of time in the bus, stopping for tours with the French tour guide (who spoke to us in French, bien sur, although we spoke to each other in English) and walks through the gardens of each destination. We skipped through the gardens at Amboise singing a French song about a shepherdess carrying apples on her head, and ate a delicious dinner (with a taste of a kir) in a restaurant in a cave near Azay-le-Rideau. I got to see working models of some of Leonardo da Vinci's many inventions in the da Vinci museum at Amboise, where the great renaissance man spent the last three years of his life at Francois I's invitation. They included the printing press, the bicycle, the car, the machine gun, the suspension bridge, the life preserver, the water mill, and the helicopter. He was a real genius- all this in addition to painting, drawing, anatomical observations, wise aphorisms, and writing poetry and music. For lunch yesterday, we went to a real family-owned boulangerie, where a 9 or 10-year-old boy took orders while his parents made the sandwiches. He was very cute, and added up the change out loud. I had a great time on the trip.

I have to get into the swing of things with actual homework- I have 600 pages to read in a week and a half for my literature class, and of course French takes longer to read. And unfortunately libraries are not open on Sundays so I have to find some time during the week to get some books out. I like my classes a lot- but I'm going to have to make an effort to meet more French people and not just stick with the other foreign students. I've met some great people in my lit TD and one girl in my Architecture class, but I want to build a social circle.

To catch up, briefly: Nuit Blanche was lots of fun. The streets were filled with people even after 2 AM, when the museums closed. I met up with 6 of the 11 AYA people, and we strolled down the Champs-Elysees to the Louvre. The monuments and sculptures were illuminated in blue in honor of the Yves Klein (who patented the color International Klein Blue) exhibit at the Centre Pompidou. It was a beautiful sight: the blue fountain at the Place de la Concorde, the glowing blue obelisk, and the Tour Eiffel sparkling under a luminescent full moon. We saw some light shows at the Grand and Petit Palais, and an intriguing and yummy art installation consisting of thousands of silver wrapped candies strewn all over the marble entrance to the Grand Palais. People were stepping on them and searching for unopened candies. I think it was supposed to be a commentary on human greed or waste, but it was pretty and I still have some candies left in my bag. It was great to hang out with the AYA people, and I witnessed some drama while one of the girls tried to decide whether or not to go out with the Harvard guy. I walked back by myself at 3 AM, but the streets were well lit and still fairly busy, so it was surprisingly safe.

Sunday morning I understandably slept in, and then walked by the Seine and had a lovely lunch on the riverbank. Afterwards I visited the small but appropriately claustrophobic memorial to the deportation of French Jews, Resistants, Gypsies, gay people, and political dissidents. It was designed with small staircases, bars, and small, dark rooms with quotes from contemporary French intellectuals about the horror of the Holocaust (in opaque poetic words that often seemed not to have anything to do with the purpose of the monument).

Yesterday and today, I've started some of my classes at the Sorbonne. Either fortunately or unfortunately, there is at least one other AYA student in each of my classes, so I'm going to have to try harder to get to meet the other French students. Today I managed to make friends with two girls, but most of the time I was just talking to Kelly in franglais. I'm really excited about the courses, though- I've heard a lot about the big ideas of literature, and I think it will be refreshing to get a French view of these subjects. The lecture parts of the classes are HUGE, with 150-200 students in one room and not one question asked to the audience. But there are also sections, which I haven't had yet, which are supposed to be discussion-based and smaller. I have some homework tonight, and reading in French has proven to be a bit of a challenge because it takes so long and I have to look up all these words. But I already think it's getting better. I just hope I don't have to do too much reading for my other classes. I also opened a bank account here today: getting really settled in. And I managed to work all the technical stuff out in French, somehow.

I've learned some interesting tidbits about the family tonight. While Sophie and Adele were at a movie together, Sophie's ex-husband came over for dinner with Jean-Marie (Sophie's husband) and me. However, I didn't understand the situation until after he had left. The ex-husband came out of the closet after he and Sophie had had a child, Camille, who is now living in Berlin, and they divorced. He and Jean-Marie are friends. Jean-Marie is the father of the other two children, Paul and Adele. It's interesting to see how that kind of family dynamic works out. I also learned that Jean-Marie is working on a book, and we had a good conversation on what literature is. This is a great place to be intellectual; this upcoming weekend is a literature festival, with free readings all over the city and chances to get to meet authors and such. I even saw an anti-drug ad on the Metro that was a metaphorical autobiography of "la drogue", stating its hatred of light, health and life and its desire to ruin lives in revenge. This is a crazy place.

Painting the town

I'm in the middle of a big happening day (and night) right now. This afternoon, the 7e arrondissement, where I live, hosted a festival sponsored by the local shopowner's union. There were free tours of museums, cheese, wine and chocolate tastings, poetry readings, fashion shows, and free rides in horse-drawn carriages. Yasmine and I, having returned from a shopping expedition to a bargain department store, tried to get into the Assemble Nationale for a tour, but it was full. Instead we went to a free exhibit at the Hotel de Ville of the cartoonist and political commentator Cabu's work. In his sketchy style, he traces the trends that Paris has followed over the last forty years, from jazz to gentrification to Japanese tourists. He's very good. Afterwards, we caught a ride in a caleche (horse-drawn carriage), and were lucky enough to have a 45-minute ride before they realized they needed to shorten the route. It was amazing- a jaunt in a 19th-century carriage in 21st-century Paris, on a beautiful day, with good company and lots of kids waving to us from the sidewalk. We walked around a ton and stopped in shops, eventually pausing in an American cafe called the Real McCoy, where everyone ordered in English. It was strange- they had all these typically American junk food products lining the walls. When I stepped out into the street again, I returned from Middle America to Paris.

Tonight is the Nuit Blanche- all museums, swimming pools, and art-house movie theaters are free and open all night, and the metro is free. I might stay out all night. There are also free concerts and art shows all over the city. I'm about to go out... I hope it's good! It's amazing how happening this city is, and so many people turn out for events.

French education

During the past two days, I've been getting a feel for what my classes are going to be like, working out logistics, and hoping that the transition to a European-style university will start getting a little smoother.

This is what I've gathered so far about the French educational system. Because nobody has actually told me this explicitly, and I'm still not perfect at understanding, there might be faults. In France, the high school equivalent, lycee, is already fairly specialized; starting in thier first year of lycee (secondaire), students have to choose one of three subject paths to study. While specializing in literature (humanities), science (math and science), or industrial science, they continue to take courses outside of their concentration, but those classes don't count for as much of their grade. During their second (primaire) and third (terminale) years of lycee, they take the Baccalaureat, or Bac, test, which covers pretty much every subject they've taken and acts as a qualifier for higher education. Results are published and everyone knows who got which score. It's possible to do very well if you do excellently on some portions of the Bac and not on others, because university, tech schools, self-directed education, trade schools, and the grandes ecoles are all very specialized and require good scores on the relevant subjects. The five options I've listed are all acceptable options: not everyone goes on to college as we think of it. If you want to be a doctor, for instance, you go to a special medical school right after lycee. The grandes ecoles are just as specialized, but extremely small, selective, and prestigious- their intention, and achieved goal, is to create an elite in their area. For example, the Ecole National d'Administration's graduates fill over half of high-ranking French government posts, and the top five ranked students from the graduating class get to pick their starting post. It's very rare to receive a liberal arts education in your late teens-early twenties here. The Sorbonne, or Paris IV, is a university made up of many different faculties, so people call it "le fac". You enroll yourself in one faculte or department and only take classes in that department. It's pretty difficult to switch subjects, and if you do, you have to start from the beginning again (with as many extra years of study as that requires.) From what I've heard, it's bigger, more independent, and more impersonal than American universities, and definitely a lot more so than American small liberal arts colleges. Also, people are older by the time they start le fac or whatever else they're doing. Most people graduate from lycee a year after American seniors, and then some people take a year off to continue their studies in order to qualify for their higher education. Basically, I think many of my first-year classmates may already be in their 20s. I'll see. Because le fac is so big and impersonal, many AYA people have complained of having difficulty meeting people in their classes. I'm going to try to talk to the professor and to the people in the classes; I hope it works out.

I'm going to take either two or three courses at the Sorbonne, in far-flung campuses across the city. One campus is literally on the northern outer city limits. (I say two or three because I'm going to go to all three and see whether it seems like too much work or too much time.) I missed the first meeting of one of the classes, because I just went in to see the directrice today and we figured out that the history class I had signed up for wouldn't work out in terms of the schedule, but the one I switched to met yesterday. Luckily, another AYA student (Deeona from Yale) is in the class so she's going to fill me in on what I missed. I'm taking a double-credit intro to French literature, a class on French society in the first half of the twentieth century, and an art history class that promises to teach me how to look at painting, sculpture and architecture. Besides these classes, I'm taking two courses offered jointly by AYA and the Tulane study abroad program with Sorbonne professors, in French of course. These are a class in the intersection of French literature and cinema (Jean-Marie was very excited about the selection of movies we're going to watch, and the professor is a director in his own right and is very likeable), and a class on museology, which involves going to museums, learning about how and why the museums and exhibits were put together, and writing essays analyzing works of art and how they can be displayed best to the public. I've gone to the first meetings of both of these, and they seem great. The films and the museums are two of my favorite things about being in Paris (they show classic movies at so many theaters for cheap prices all the time here), and I'll be able to appreciate them better if I know what they're trying to do.

Yesterday, I went to the Musee Maillol, where there was an exhibit of Marilyn Monroe photographs taken shortly before her death by Bert Stern. There was a special guided tour as part of the "7 jours du septieme" (arrondissement) festival. She is definitely beautiful, and I could see a more human side to her in many of the close-ups. But the photos were mostly nude, and tread the line between art and porn, especially because she was trying to look sexy. There were a few parents with kids in the exhibit- I guess the French really do have different standards of what they think is appropriate for kids. I also went back to the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution, which was truly impressive. They use an enormous collection of taxidermied animals to great effect in displays about real scientific concepts like defining a species, recombination, environmental effects on populations, and so on, not to mention the parade of rhinoceri, giraffes, yaks, and elephants that hits your eyes (to use the French expression) as soon as you walk in. There's even a galerie des especes eteints, a moving room with darkened lights that displays endangered and extinct taxidermied animals and plants. There aren't any surviving taxidermied dodos, but there is an old model of one from the late 1700s. Mixed in with the evolution of existing living things is a temporary exhibit on dragons. One boy was understandably confused, and kept asking his mother, "But dragons exist, don't they?" It talked about reasons for why dragons exist in mythologies around the world, common attributes, and purposes and characterisations. It included many dragon tales, old "dragon skeletons" and "dragon eggs" and "dragon teeth" (with identifications as mismatched skeletons and the like), and interactive movies and stations that were meant for kids but were just as fun for an 18-year-old. Both the biology and the fantasy references made me happy.

Among other things, I applied for a carte de sejour today and worked out many logistics. I also met Winston, who used to go to Roxbury Latin (Winsor's brother school), for lunch; he's doing a program at the Institut Catholique, which, in addition to theology classes on all world religions, teaches political science, film criticism, art history, and the like. His host family is on welfare, so he has to go get government handout meals which are bad quality, so he has to spend his own money for food. It's a rough situation, especially since he's paying for it from sales of his own artwork at home. He's sleeping in a closet, and once he is whisked off to Beauxbatons will be the next Harry Potter. It was nice to get to see him, and to know that there's someone else with a very similar background here. I also wandered around the Marais and the Place des Vosges and did some window shopping with Yasmine, and spoke with her mostly in French. We saw people selling lulavs and etrogs on the street for Sukkot, and saw a photographer taking pre-wedding pictures of a lovely Jewish couple in the park. I'm having a great time with her.

I've got to start looking at some scholarships for next year, and of course go to sleep. One last thing- I met Sofia Coppola yesterday morning. I was walking down the stairwell (on purpose, to be honest) when she came out of the third floor apartment. I said, "Hi, I live on the fifth floor." She said something like, "Oh. Have a good day." I wasn't sure it was her, but then I google imaged her and confirmed it.

Bonne nuit!

Flaner, Casser la jeune et etre la voisine de Sofia Coppola

Because my real classes aren't going to start until next Monday, I have a bit of in-between time this week. The "sept jours du septieme (arrondissement)", a local festival with lots of free events, tours of museums and the Assemble National, and discounted prices at cafes, is starting tomorrow, and I think I'll go to the kickoff parade and see whether I can rent a bike and participate in it. Also, I'm going to go to the first meeting of a course that's offered jointly by Academic Year Abroad and Tulane's Paris program, taught by Sorbonne professor and film director Pierre Samson. The course is on the intersection of French literature and cinema, and it covers the major issues of the last century in France. Basically, it's watching good French movies with some reading involved. It sounds great, and I think I can take it in addition to my normal four courses at the Sorbonne.

This morning, I woke up, text-messaged some people, and had no idea what to do. Since I didn't get any replies, I took my map, went to the nearest Metro station, and picked a stop. I wandered around from there, meaning to get to the Pantheon eventually but seeing where the route would take me. I walked around an outdoor market, bought three pieces of gourmet chocolate (specifically: raspberry, pistachio, and honey) from the Maison du chocolat, had a nice sandwich in a little park that was a bit sheltered from the rain, and took pictures of some funny little stores. One was called Mona Lisait (Mona Reads): I thought that was cute. I stumbled upon the Jardin des Plantes, a huge botanical garden, which, given my new knowledge of botany from the Biology Olympiad, was a delight. They had a solanaceae tree, all kinds of vines, three rows of asters, anything you could think of, all laid out in beautiful rows in front of the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution. Unfortunately, the Grande Galerie and the exhibit on dragons were closed. Jean-Marie Guichard says that French museums are all closed on Tuesdays, not Mondays. That's another small difference to remember; I guess I'll have to return. At the end of the gardens there's a huge statue, which you approach from the back. I thought I knew who I'd see, but I was wrong. It wasn't Darwin, but Lamarck! I realized that Darwin is English, and Lamarck is French; the French don't care that Lamarck's theory of evolution was wrong.

After that, I found my way to the Pantheon, and paid the student fare. (If I were just a few months younger I would be able to go to most of these places for free.) Paris is nice to its students: there are special cafes where you can get a good, really cheap lunch, special student metro cards, special apartment rates, and more. Also I just learned that even private schools in France are partly funded by the government: the rationalization is that all students have the right to some government money. As part of some kind of Paris art installation, pieces of contemporary art have been commissioned for public monuments for the duration of the fall. The Pantheon is covered by a really weird white thing that resembles nothing so much as slime mold, and it has the scent of various spices. I can't say how bizarre it is, with a huge thick spider web and drops of fabric filled with polystyrene hanging down almost to the floor, and it obscures the beautiful architecture and the paintings in the domes. I don't get it, and I overheard that the tour guide didn't either. It's called "Leviathan-Thoth", and the Brazilian artist who designed it said it's supposed to be a "monster" that "reminds us of the origins of society" and is "both strong and sensual, like a samba". Those Brazilians and their sambas. Despite the weirdness of the art piece, the paintings of ancient French legends (Jeanne d'Arc, St-Genevieve, St-Louis) were appropriately grand and inspiring, and the tombs and biographies of more modern French legends (Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, the Curies, and most recently Alexandre Dumas) were also appropriately inspiring, if not as grand.

After this I decided to walk all the way back in the rain, but as I didn't bring a raincoat I got pretty cold and decided to duck into a movie theater for a nice warm afternoon at the movies. I chose to see "Les Indigenes", a movie about French soldiers in WWII from les departements d'outre-mer (like Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Guadeloupe, and Martinique). Despite their patriotism and sacrifices, they weren't treated the same as soldiers from France: they got worse food, weren't respected and were not even given pensions after they returned. The movie was excellent; I don't know whether it's available in the U.S., but I would definitely recommend it, with the warning that it's pretty bloody. After seeing the movie, Jacques Chirac pushed through a law giving pensions to the Outre-mer veterans and their families.

It was strange, and a little lonely, going around by myself, but also freeing. I think I'll have more people to hang out with and less unstructured time once classes start.

I forgot to mention yesterday. I returned to the same synagogue, which is apparently pretty famous, and spent the afternoon of the very long fast day at Greg's tiny apartment in the Marais. (He's the Harvard student from AYA who I ran into the other night.) He let me use his computer, and played me some cool music: he runs an alternative-rock radio show at Harvard. When I came back for Neilah, the last part of the service, I sat next to a young woman, and we struck up a conversation. I discovered that women aren't supposed to sing along with the service: I don't know whether that's true in more places than this synagogue, but it really annoyed me, and created an atmosphere where you can't hear the service anyway because all the women are talking to each other. (What else is there to do? You can't see the service, you can't hear the service, you can't sing, and many people can't read Hebrew well enough to follow along.) She's very nice: her dad isn't Jewish, and she's the only practicing one of her immediate family, but she only comes to services on Yom Kippur. She thinks that Judaism is on the decline in France because of a lack of education. The rest of her extended family is more Orthodox, though, and she introduced me to her aunt. They invited me over for a break fast, and I decided to go with them. First we stopped at the apartment to pick everyone up, and then we gathered outside a different synagogue in the street under pouring rain and all (15 or 20 relatives) of us crowded under the grandfather's tallit until we heard the last shofar blast. Then everyone said a bracha and then did la bise (the cheek kisses) to everyone else in the family and all their friends in the surrounding families, wishing them a "bonne fete", and rushed home to eat. Everyone crowded around the dining room table of the little apartment for couscous and homemade pastries and lots of chicken and charcuteries, all kosher of course. (I had couscous and salad.) The family was very open to me; one 16-year-old cousin had visited family in Roslindale, near Forest Hills, to babysit for them over the summer, so we talked about Boston a bit. The family is a mix of Ashkenazi and Sephardi, but they all get along. I'm going to try to get together with Anais for lunch sometime.

The Guichards are really great: there are moments when everyone's talking at once, and everyone has an opinion. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with them, especially Jean-Marie. Yasmine and I exchange looks sometimes when we don't get something, but I've been able to ask for explanations and it's all worked out most of the time.

As a closing note, guess who lives in this apartment building? Sofia Coppola! She lives two floors beneath me! I can't believe it.

Moving in and repenting

So it's Yom Kippour in Paris. I was going to go to services with the director of the program, Madame Schneersohn, but I called her late this afternoon only to find out she's only going tomorrow. So instead I took the Metro (it's getting to be more natural for me) to the Marais, the so-called Jewish quarter, to look around for a synagogue. While searching for a synagogue on the internet, I found a warning from the French Jewish organization to be careful, because many anti-semitic attacks have happened around the High Holidays. And sure enough, there were two guards stationed outside the shul I chose. But people were very friendly- I explained my situation to the guy checking tickets, and he let me in without a ticket. I went up to the women's balcony, and introduced myself to some elderly women who were there early; they were surprised that I had come there by myself. They told me about a Yiddish center and library that I hope to go check out. One woman kept repeating what I had said, often in the same words, to the others. I don't think my French is too bad; yesterday, at the Musee Carnavalet (on the history of Paris), I had an extended conversation with the people at the desk, and they seriously thought I was French. One landmark reached! In any case, I don't think it's my accent that's the problem; it's the grammar and vocabulary. So I need some time to adjust. Back to the service: I understood the parts of the sermon that I could hear, and it was interesting to see a different set of customs, although most things, including the tunes, were very similar. During the service, I realized that I recognized a face in the crowd: it was Greg, from my program! He goes to Harvard, and is renting an apartment in the Marais. There are four or five synagogues in the surrounding two blocks, so it was a big coincidence, but I couldn't get his attention because he was on the men's floor. I ended up talking to him after the service.

Over the past week, I've been flaner-ing (that is, wandering around the city) a lot, and visiting many museums. I've definitely been learning a lot of art history; I love going to museums. The first Sunday of each month, including today, all Paris museums are free. I took the opportunity to visit the Musee d'Orsay and the Orangerie, which was newly renovated. The Orangerie shows off Monet's Water Lilies to great advantage in huge oval rooms, and has an amazing collection of Picasso, Renoir, Matisse, Derain, Rousseau, Utrillo, and Soutine. I even got to stop and have a nice meal of a cheese omelet and a salad in a cafe on la rue St-Germain. I sat outside and read a book that my host-father, Jean-Marie, recommended and lent to me: Exercises de style by Raymond Queneau. The book is a collection of 99 variations on the same simple anecdote about a young man on a bus, including a sonnet, an olfactory version, anagrams, a logical analysis, and even a version made completely from interjections. It's pretty awesome, but probably not the same to read in English. It's nice to be pretty immersed in French, but it means that when I'm called upon to speak Spanish or Hebrew, I have many issues.

On Thursday I moved in with my host family. They far exceed my expectations. Somehow I alone of the group am living near the center of Paris. I'm in the 7e arrondissement, about four blocks away from the Musee d'Orsay and a twenty-minute walk from the Tour Eiffel and the Assemble National and les Invalides and Notre Dame and pretty much anything else you would want to see. It's a chic neighborhood, and very pretty. The apartment is full of college kids, and I'm the youngest. The inhabitants are: the dad, Jean-Marie Guichard, a retired journalist in his 50s; the mom, Sophie, a currently unemployed journalist in her 50s; their second child, Paul, who's studying biology at the Ecole de Sciences, and is 22 (and frankly good-looking); their third child, Adele, a 19-year-old law student at the Sorbonne; and another American exchange student, Yasmine, from Georgetown, who's taking international economics at the Sciences Po (a Grande ecole, or really really good school). I've been doing a lot of things with Yasmine- it's great to have another person in my situation to help translate and commiserate with. She has an interesting background: her mother works for the U.S. State Department, and married her father, a native of Ile Maurice (which is near Madagascar), when on assignment there. Yasmine was born in Switzerland (her mom was on assignment again) and has lived in France before, and is perfectly fluent. She's both Hindu and Christian, and is funny and a great person to hang out with. Everyone has been very flexible, and Sophie is even cooking delicious gourmet vegetarian food for me. (They have a cat, and I'm allergic, but that's the only dent in a fabulous situation.) I have my own room for the first time, with a beautiful balcony with flowers that I go on to get a view of the courtyard from the sixth floor.

I'm loving this freedom and having little adventures. I've been meeting up with AYA people, especially Christine, to do things, and I'm looking forward to the next week, before classes start. I hope I can take classes at the Sorbonne itself instead of the international grammar course; I'm still waiting to hear back from the scholarship people about that. I also hope I can see some more manifestations and get more integrated into Paris life!