International savoir-faire

This is at least partly catch-up from the previous post.

Thanksgiving- in Paris! It was a pretty surreal experience- no vacation, no family gathering, no decorations, no cranberries, which are almost impossible to find in France. But there was a turkey. The AYA directrice, Madame Schneersohn, invited all of us, plus some of her family and friends, over for Thanksgiving dinner. The director of AYA in the US had sent over Thanksgiving-themed paper plates, cups and napkins, and the non-vegetarians enjoyed homemade turkey and stuffing, while the vegetarians ate mashed potatoes, cucumber slices, and baby carrots. (This was one of the few occasions where I've felt like breaking vegetarianism- but I held out.) It was very nice to see all the AYA people, and to catch up on the adventures of some people I hadn't seen in weeks.

Another big development- through the UEJF (French Hillel) website, I discovered Israeli dancing classes, and I've now gone to two of them. As I thought, it's been a good way to get to know French Jewish students, and have a peek at how the Jewish community here works. The classes meet in the Marais on the second floor of a building with a shop on the ground floor, and are taught by a 22-year-old student and her 19-year-old brother. After the first class, I went out to dinner with a group of six to try what claims to be (and I can believe it) the best falafel in Paris at "L'As de Fallafel", or the Ace of Falafels. I worked out a conversation arrangement with a guy named Michael, who's 19 and in his second year of "prepa" or preparation to get into a grande ecole. So on Saturday, I went over to his house (he lives a few blocks away from me), and we helped each other with our French/English, first speaking in English for an hour- I wrote down expressions he didn't know- and then for the rest of the time in French. Somehow the conversation turned to philosophy, fractals, and politics; he's a very neat guy. His father, Daniel Sibony, has written 31 books on the politics of the Middle East, similarities and differerences between the three big monotheistic religions, psychology, and mathematics; they've been translated into many languages, just not English, because he hasn't found a translator he likes yet. I looked at some of them, and I'd love to read some of his work. On the religion issue, the dad grew up in Morocco, and so can read the Koran in Arabic and has an interesting point of view. Anyway, Michael and I went to a movie on Saturday night; I think he's going out with another girl from the dance class, but I'm not absolutely sure. On Sunday night I invited two AYA people with me to the dance class, which was interesting but made me a little less willing to put myself out and meet people speaking French. I'm going to keep doing the conversation things- it's really helpful to have someone correcting me, and Michael's very nice.

I also met more European people studying at the Sorbonne last Friday at a gathering for French Sorbonne students and ERASMUS Sorbonne students. ERASMUS is a European Union program which makes it easy for European students to study abroad in other countries and get their credits transferred, and also provides advisors. There are a fair number of ERASMUS students at the Sorbonne, and this was an event to get to know other ERASMUS and French people. For some reason Mme Schneersohn heard about it, so I went with Chesna, but when we got there we were the only two Americans there. I got to meet people from Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Ireland, and it was interesting to compare their experiences to mine. I've been getting a lot of international exposure.

As always, behind the punctuation of museums and meetings, there is the daily grind of school and homework, as I realize that I actually do have lots of essays to write and tests to study for. I also went babysitting again, and had a very nice time with Chiara.

I'm going to go to Brussels tomorrow for a rally for Israel, or specifically for the Israeli prisoners still in Lebanon and Gaza. I thought it would be a good opportunity to get to meet other UEJF people, but also get to see a new city and meet Belgian and German Jewish students. I'll see how it goes- I'll be spending a long time on the road tomorrow. I guess I'd better finish up, then.

Many meetings

Over the past week, I've spoken a lot of French, and met lots of French and non-American people. The language is getting more comfortable, and I can actually say I've had the experience (twice in the last two days) of running into someone I know on the streets of Paris. I also had an interesting expat Thanksgiving dinner. And my social life is getting more interesting as I find things to do besides class, homework, wandering around and going to museums. Although that kind of life is really not too bad, unless you factor in the solitude.

Alors. First the vestiges of the solitary life. I stumbled upon a place I'd been looking for ever since I read Adam Gopnick's collection of essays, Paris to the Moon, about being an American in Paris: Deyrolle. It turns out that it was three blocks away from me the entire time. Deyrolle is a strange place- it's a taxidermy store. The window displays include preserved deer in hunter's outfits, stuffed cats, and birds. When you climb the stairs to the larger second floor, you see an odd menagerie- water buffalo, a giraffe, and an elephant greet you, and a bird is perched on a polar bear. In one room there is a gigantic preserved insect collection, with drawers and drawers of beetles and butterflies and scorpions and anything you can think of, that would make Kinsey proud. And the strangest thing is that everything has a price on it- apparently there's still a sizable market for dead animal trophies.

This week, I also visited the Musee Picasso, by myself, which is a very cool museum. I can't believe the genius and breath of artistic creativity of Picasso- it's as if he had 10 different master artists inside of him. I also learned that the Louvre opens free for students on Friday nights, and has special art classes and talks until 10 PM, so for the past two Friday nights I've gone there. Unfortunately I missed the art classes both times, but I'll keep trying- instead I sketched some pieces on my own. My museum class also visited the Musee Rodin, who apparently hardly ever did the actual sculpting in marble himself, but only made the clay models and passed them on to his girlfriend, Camille Claudel; you wouldn't know from all the photos and videos he convinced his friends to take of him chipping away at a block of marble. She should get more credit. I've also been to the Louvre twice, and even done a little sketching. They have events that are free for students on Friday nights.

Today, in another solitary endeavour, I decided to take advantage of a free lecture series and go to Sciences Po (the political Grande Ecole) to learn about "The Silent Revolution: Changes in French politics from 1980-2005", so I could be more up to date on the political situation.

More to come.

Fiche sur l'integration francaise d'une etudiante

In the style of a good old French plan, here is how I will present my arguments to sketch out the last two weeks or so. (Humor me.) There have been a few important recent developments: 1) a babysitting job; 2) academics; 3) the Socialist party primary; 4) my recent trip to London and Oxford to visit my cousin Ann Klibaner. How have these developments contributed to a sense of growing integration into French society?

1) The babysitting job. After calling maybe 10 job opportunities, I got two responses, and after an interview, decided in favor of taking card of one precocious, strong-willed child instead of three. Chiara, who's 7, is the daughter of an American jazz singer and a French lawyer; I heard about this job through AYA- the assistant directrice, Sarah, is friends with the American mom, and used to babysit Chiara. I just started today, although the parents were around, and helped make dinner, gave Chiara a bath, and helped her with her relatively hard French homework. She's sort of bossy, but funny and smart: we had a great time singing songs from "West Side Story" together (I explained to her what the word "pity", from "I Feel Pretty", means.) I had spent the money I knew I would earn earlier today on a shopping spree with Amanda from AYA, and I finally bought some essentials like gloves, stockings and a beret. So when I was watching political debates on TV tonight, I felt I could identify with all the talk about pouvoir des achats (purchasing power).

2) I am actually getting a lot of work now; I discovered the wonder of the library at the Centre Pompidou yesterday, especially its music collection, when I went there to research the stained glass windows of Chartres for an Art History paper. Also, I got my first test, in my Literature class, back yesterday. And I have no idea how, but I did very well- I got the best grade in the class of 50 people (French and foreign). Too bad this year doesn't count for anything.

3) Politics! It's always an interesting subject, especially now. Today was the primary election to decide on the socialist candidate for president. The three candidates were: Segolene Royal, the relatively centrist woman; Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the sensible Jewish guy with some political experience; and Laurent Fabius, the most left-wing Jewish guy with a less interesting delivery and the most political experience. As of a half-hour ago, Segolene Royal won, a step forward in a country which has never had a woman as a major presidential candidate. She's predicted to have a chance of winning against the main right-wing (UMP) candidate, Nicholas Sarkozy. I think she was a good debater, but from my ignorant position I think I preferred DSK (she made some mistakes in her arguments about international politics). But I hope she does well in the general elections. For the first time, I feel au courant de (on top of) the political situation here.

4) Merry Old England. I took an overnight bus there and back (for economy's sake), and together with the bus from London to Oxford and back spent about 19 hours on the bus over four days, which let me meet some interesting people--that's what public transportation is good for--including a French Cambridge/Paris II law student from Algeria named Hanaa who was very nice, and an Oxford carpenter (20 years old). Once in London at 6 AM, I wandered around the city, saw the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery (with a stunning Velasquez exhibit), had a picturesque picnic in the park near Buckingham Palace, and saw the Queen driving out of Buckingham Palace in her car, although I couldn't get a picture because my camera ran out of batteries.

I had some issues meeting up with Ann in Oxford, because I went to the wrong bus stop, but once we worked that out I settled down for a lovely Shabbat with her and the Oxford JSOC (Hillel equivalent). We sang late into the night with awesome people, played English Trivial Pursuit (never a good idea if you don't know the names of any cricket players), said a prayer for the Queen, had a moment of silence for Remembrance Sunday, the day after Armistice Day, and talked about the Oxford system of education, which sounds very rigorous but very personalized with lots of one-on-one feedback. Saturday night, I saw "Casablanca" at the French/Israeli rabbi's house. On Sunday, Ann and I did touristy things in Oxford which she hadn't gotten around to doing yet, including visiting the 1000-year-old castle that's right next to her dorm building. She has an ancient moat outside her dorm window. We also went on a ride called the Oxford Story where we sat in moving desks and rolled past dioramas of interesting events in Oxford's history, complete with moving figurines of Lewis Carroll and Alice Littel, the Town vs. Gown riot, Halley and his comet, and J.R.R. Tolkien. And we looked around the Botanical Gardens, which were beautiful, and I finally got to see some real fall color. It turns out that Oxford was founded by dissenting professors from the Sorbonne, and then dissenting professors from Oxford founded Cambridge; John Harvard went to Oxford. The town is beautiful; each of the 35 colleges has its own little quad, and the gothic architecture, "dreamy towers", pastures with cows, winding rivers with little rowboats, and peculiar gargoyles create a unique ambiance. It was also nice to be able to speak English for a bit, but I found myself missing Paris- a sign that it's becoming my home.

Other notes: "Borat" was shocking and hilarious, and was attended by a mostly American audience; the Comedie Francaise theatre Richelieu is as luxurious as I expected it to be; Shakespeare and Company, a haven of Anglophone books and writers, is truly paradise; and Halloween is not for Parisians, but only for Americans in Paris.

O cher lecteur, mon semblable, mon frere, I will leave it to you to draw my conclusion.

FIN