Alliance Francaise Paris

I took two semesters of Alliance Francaise classes my last winter and spring in New York, I had an amazing teacher similar to my amazing French teacher from DePaul when I was a freshman in college. In short it was a great experience where I met very interesting people and came home Tuesday and Thursday nights inspired and eager to practice French with Sylvain. When I first got to Paris I had planned on taking French lessons, but I had to first secure a job, and second to save enough money to feel comfortable spending money on something that I could in some ways get for free. I improved my French watching French TV, talking with our French friends and to some extent, reading in French... But Sylvain and I don't speak French together, we communicate in English. Of course this is dumb on our part, I would be far more fluent in French than I currently am, if only we spent some of our time together conversing in French. We don't though, occasionally I implore him to at least speak to me in French, but he forgets and although he is eager for me to gain proficiency, he isn't eager enough to speak French to me, unless he's mad at me, then he will shout at me in French and watch- amusingly, I'm sure- as I slowly unravel what it is he just said to me, 2 minutes later when I've sorted it out he thinks I'm breaking his balls (this phrase I have down by now) the argument is over due to the time lapse, nerves having calmed.

I just signed up for 10 weeks of Alliance Francaise classes here in Paris, although this time I'll just be taking oral conversation. I've spent 8 years of my schooling taking French and learning all that grammar was great, but in reality, I use so little of it when actually living my life in France where in conversation I rely heavily upon the past and the present verb conjugation.

Living in Paris has been a really positive experience despite how difficult it has sometimes been adjusting, but the reason I came here, or rather the reason it was important I come here was to learn French. My life is tied to a French persons, whose family and whose friends are French speaking and who I want to be able to understand and communicate with on a deeper level than weather, eager for the day I can make and understand jokes.

Jardin des Plantes

Friday I took the girls to the Jardin de Tuileries, and we walked back some towards the champs elysee in a garden space called Proust something, a perfect place to have a picnic, which we did. A has this thing about taking off her shoes, she wants them off in the library, in any park and pretty much everywhere else, she has a fetish for having her feet held, I see no point in stopping her anymore. Picking your fights with a two year old with a typical case of the terrible twos, well I can't blame her if she relishes in grass underfoot, in the confines of the city, its a rare treat. We rode the ferris wheel in Tuileries and although three revolutions cost a pricey 8 euros, it was offset by the stunning views of the city and the fact that my employers covered the cost. Despite a little rain shower- as S says, the clouds are crying- we had a nice picnic and walking back to the metro we sang Oh Champs Elysee while dodging annoying tourists.

Saturday my friend from High school came to spend the night and after a coffee we put together our snacks and headed to the Jardin des Plantes, the parks here are insanely groomed- it is definitely not my preference, but they do tend to be beautiful in a look but don't touch way. All parks in Paris are full of benches and chairs to watch the beauty of nature, but from a safe distance lest you trample the nature that has been so acutely tamed and organized. Stroll along the sandy stone paths, rest on a perfectly placed bench, but don't even think about entering into the mise en scene and "experiencing" nature, it's only there to look at lest a human touch spoil the aesthete. You can be part of the tableau, but never lose yourself, escaping the demands of the city feeling the touch of wet green grass or the shade of a tree, lying on your back and examining the shapes of the clouds. Certainly nothing as reckless as a game of frisbee.

Afterwards Sylvain and Florian met us and we headed to la Seine for some boteillon and watched the tourist boats go by with a view of the derriere de Notre Dame. Near us a man was burning incense and alternating between playing the accordion and finger cymbals. A woman in a typical garishly white wedding dress posed with her new mate for photos. Florian was waiting for a text to see if his Satan Poem was good enough to gain him entry into the Fete de Satan and we teased him to recite his poem for us slam style.

We headed home after some terrible sushi and finished our bottle of wine and some more beers with our entertaining friend Nat. Ending the night after our neighbor told us around 2:30am to use our quiet voices after Nat gave us his impression of a Judo master.

Americans in Paris part deux

This summer my employers are hosting their niece who is 16. She is textbook teenager and for the first few hours of our time spent together she said about 4 words to me- all one word responses to my questions, until she confessed to me that after 3 hours in Paris she was having withdrawal symptoms from her cell phone... Ben oui... Her aunt and uncle admitted to me that she was comatose most of the time around them and they decided to talk to her about how she spends her time here since this month in Paris was their 16th birthday present for her. No more sleeping until 11, clean up after yourself (I am not her nanny after all) and get out and do something, at minimum step up her interaction with her two young cousins.

Two weeks later, she's starting to come out of her shell, a little (she has yet to ask me a single personal question- am I just hired help for her? probably). But, she is painstakingly American in her... let's say perspective... She has already raised concerns over the French penchant for eating raw meat (hello! are we not over cooking our meat until it's well done? I mean sushi has been around long enough by now hasn't it?) she is concerned about the European tradition of not refrigerating milk or eggs at the grocery store, the smoking, or course... But today, it hit a fever pitch, we went to the local pool. This pool is located in Neuilly, it's not your typical YMCA affair, there are 4 pools, two water slides, bubbling areas, outside areas, picnic areas and it's all really, really... nice. We met my girls' best friends and their mother there but this girl stood outside the pool not sullen, but as if a brooding teenager for a good 30 minutes before resigning to join us inside the pool. I thought at first this might be because everyone in Paris is...tight, perk, lean, and she is sort of rocking the overweight teenager look. But no, that wouldn't explain her general disengagement, besides I didn't notice any boys her age and mostly the pool was full of older woman, mothers or young children.

Then the reveal. When her aunt came home from work tonight she asked how she liked the pool. I DIDN'T, IT WAS TERRIBLE!!! In my head, is a big question mark ? does she just not like sun and swimming? Some people don't I get that, but then why not say so, I mean, she didn't actually have to join us- it's not a requirement to spend a 91 degree day at the pool. THERE WERE NAKED PEOPLE! Here my brain starts scanning through the people I saw poolside- it's true French woman take their bikini tops (why would you wear a one piece if you have a perfect body after all? and tie the part that goes around their necks, around their backs thus making a sort of haphazard bandeau top- but I had not noticed anyone topless and although you could very occasionally see the hint of a nipple slipping out, it was hardly shocking considering, well, if you take the children under 10 out of the equation, 99% of the people at the pool were female, and second most French woman have boobs the size of most 12 year old girl boobs. Can the hint of a boob that doesn't fill out a training bra, nipple or not really color your experience to such an extent?

Much like I am writing this, I am certain that this will be the highlight of her Paris experience thus far and that tonight her emails home will reinforce the "naked beach" stereotype about the French.

"The Year of No New Clothes"

I've written about how I gave up buying new clothes for a year before on this blog, and I'm happy to say I'm a little over a month away from the end of that "Lent Period". Up until about two weeks ago, I had no remorse, or regret, but then a couple weeks ago something changed. September 1st a year ago I moved to Chile, I had with me a knapsack full of clothes for 4 months, I brought mostly crap, but a few things I liked, a lot of which were items Sylvain hated, which sort of defeated the purpose really. A month into my time in Chile I asked Sylvain to cut my hair. Learn this lesson from me, unless your boyfriend is also a gay stylist, don't hand him a pair of scissors and ask him to cut anything off of you. It's not that he did a bad job, its that it was I had a stupid idea... So for the next 4 months, I basically lived like someone whose camping, I did not care what I looked like. This can be liberating for like a week, and then it gets depressing. I'm a pretty au natural kind of girl, but putting even a little effort into how you look can have big returns in the self-esteem and confidence department.

When I packed for Paris I figured, take anything that's black and lets wear out all that H&M crap I made the mistake of buying (note to self, stop buying clothes from H&M as soon as you graduate from college or at least as soon as you earn a paycheck). Six months later, and I feel a little bit like I've been punishing myself forcing myself to look a little bit stupid everyday. This was confirmed by Sylvain's late night confession that we had become less sexy...Yesterday I was anxious to go out because I didn't have to work today but I stopped myself from calling Sylvain to try and make plans with our friends, I was wearing a hideous orange skirt, with a top that could have landed me on one of those makeover TV shows. I am someone who started reading Vogue at age 12, I got the Coco Chanel award in the 6th grade, probably the only 11 year old to know what kind of honor that was. So why was I dressing like a lunatic?

For months I've been watching Sylvain wince as I dress in the morning, and I've opted to let him pick out my outfits when we "go out". Basically my clothes have been fashion suicide, and I'm over it. We are strapped for cash, but last weekend Sylvain urged me to go buy some new clothes, this from a guy who spends money on clothes once a presidential term.

I hope I've learned something from this year of "no new clothes", I think at least I've learned never to shop at J.Crew or H&M again, to seriously consider whether that American Apparel dress is appropriate and that less shopping can mean a lot more traveling. But the bigger lesson has to be that we ought to buy only what we need, I've worn out clothes this year for the first time, maybe ever and it felt so, so good. This year I've learned how much having stuff makes you stuck, how un-"green" it is, how it tethers you to standing still, I think I got it. I sort of hoarded all my favorite clothes, saving them for "when I get back" so I don't need to buy new clothes just yet (except a pair of jeans) but man I'm looking forward to not dressing like a schmuck anymore.

Bastille Day

I did not have to work today, but heavy showers made "enjoying the day" a little difficult. Sylvain and I live in Paris because we have a great friend who loaned us his apartment until August. We would not be able to afford life in Paris otherwise and we are extremely grateful... Nonetheless the apartment is 25 meters square and our windows open to a brick wall. We live around the corner from the famous flea markets selling crap and sneakers in the immigrant neighborhood of the 18eme. I cannot actually believe anyone would buy this apartment. Two weeks ago we heard the unfamiliar sound of a machine gun slaying someone at the corner of our street. I walk home from the metro passing pharmacies, hair salons for women who heavily process their hair, empty store fronts with strange figurines and tools from decades long past and cheap looking brasseries with expensive prices. I don't feel like we live in Paris, I feel like we live in purgatory, a neither here nor there space.

If moving to Paris, or anywhere, I'd make sure you can find and afford a living space that you feel good about going home to because I hate being in our apartment. So I was bound and determined not to spend my day off alone in our apartment, but the rain gave me few options and the fact that public holidays truly mean public holidays in France, and almost nothing is open. I figured, however, Starbucks would be. I was right and after ordering my tall chai tea latte I nestled in to an oversized chair and opened my e-reader to newly purchased on the metro ride over, Sloane Crosely's new book.

She starts out with a short story about turning 30 and an ill-fated trip to Lisbon. It's weird how she tries to make Lisbon sound like a 3rd world country since it's not but her out-of-sincness feels akin to my experience in Paris, except that I didn't spin a globe and buy a ticket to the place where my finger touched when the globe stopped spinning... I followed my boyfriend here.

I find it increasingly odd that in theory the French and French culture have so much going for them, nonetheless I'd rather live in New York. I have a hard time figuring this one out because I loved living in London, so it can't be the living abroad part, perhaps its the language bit, or the lack of purpose bit, but I guess it's actually a host of factors rather than just one easy villain. I just read a book I enjoyed as a fellow transplant by Debra Ollivier (today I can only remember author names and not book titles) I found her nestled between the pages of Parent magazine, one that my employers subscribe to, and I read. She writes basically about how women in Paris are sexy and Americans are high-strung, neurotic and overweight prudes who don't enjoy sex. If you ask me, she's hit it on the nail. It's easy to bash Americans to some extent, but what she writes also rings true... This morning before leaving I was listening to Teri Gross interview Tom Ford about his movie and fashion career, he said something about fashion now compared to the 90's seems pumped up and severe, like our boobs and our lips, all fake- but if you look at the 70's Farrah Fawcet was touchable, women didn't wear bras, and breast looked and felt natural. France may get picked on for it's au natural body scent, and hair growth, but they just don't see the point of being fake, it's okay to be yourself... is that why Americans are so overweight- because it's not okay to be ourselves and we eat through the pain of rejection? Because the French are not overweight, they are bird-like in their thinness, and they have small tiny blueberry boobs and no one is suggesting that they are unsexy because they can't fill out an A cup. This alone makes me love France, my boobs fit in perfectly- I remember being 12 and checking the mirror each morning for any apparent growth, but by 17 I had realized that the growth period had ended and I figured, why not embrace my humble hilltops, I threw out my padded bras and felt liberated, I figured it was better to be myself than try to be someone I'm not and the French agree.

No matter how much I relish the French, their blase I don't care if you don't like me attitude which is refreshing, the French just seem to understand and appreciate life in ways American's are not connected to- we equate everything with material success and our value is connected to how "hard" we work- our first priority, while the French are busy having love affairs working to live while eating and drinking real food, and not some processed food substitute. But something to me, seems stuck in the past, maybe its just the picture postcard architecture that makes a period piece impossible to transition to contemporary life with internet and Iphones- this goes for most of Europe I'd say. I miss New York, it seems so of this century, or at least close enough.

Sloane Crosely writes about how as an adolescent she couldn't just spin that globe and go wherever her finger landed but her about to be 30 self could... nonetheless our childhood fantasies sometimes remain fantasies for a good reason- they're better that way... I tell a lot of people I'm living the dream, I'm living in Paris! but after 6 months here and a year of living abroad, I'm confused by it all. I can't figure out at all what I want anymore. We want to build these perfect happy lives for ourselves, and we always seem to fall frustratingly short, I don't really have any friends who have it all, either divorce, or money problems or divorce and money problems, or lack of figuring it all out yet plague them all, my parents would describe themselves as happy but they also live on auto-pilot and at 30 you want to believe you'll live keyed into the experience of life...

Ambiguity

My boss has been watching more SOCCER! this world cup season than he's ever watched before. Still his Americaness does not allow him to reconcile the ambiguity of a draw. It just doesn't happen in America, there is always a decisive winner and loser. Americans live in black and white, right and wrong, love and hate, winners and loses. In France, swallowing ambiguity or shades of gray is, maybe better than the cheese, the wine, and all the pastries. I hate Paris for it's lack of parks and my morning Metro commute, but the nuance in which the French inhabit makes life a lot more interesting.

Sylvain and my relationship was for months, undefinable, I barely told my parents about him before I was moving to Chile to see what might transpire. Something about Sylvain made it unnecessary for me to have a label or to define it. While he sent emails to friends in France about his American girlfriend, for him it just was, and one didn't necessarily have to discuss it the definition wasn't of any grave import as it is for most Americans- at the same time, I wasn't defining anything to anyone- as a girl I didn't want to step into territory I wasn't explicitly given permission to tread so while my friends knew about Sylvain, they probably didn't give it much stock because I never defined it for them, it never got the all important "title". Recently he has said to me yes of course we're engaged, we have been living together for a year and a half.

I have given up a lot of the pomp and circumstance relationships often embody, but in return it has been replaced with a much more mysterious intriguing space. I hope my kids grow up with that nuance, because black and white is not an interesting space to live in, it lacks possibility, it judges.

The Monica Lewinsky debacle is a good example. Americans went nuts over did they or didn't they- in France it was considered a scandal that anyone gave this any time- they first considered it no ones business but their own and I have to agree here, because after all, the not having a definitive answer is what was so exciting in the first place - it's not that the French don't gossip but the nugget of excitement lies in the mystery. They aren't out to judge, I think the French for their own part understand well that life is more fun when we all acknowledge that being good all the time is no fun, and furthermore, no one is good all the time anyway, so lets stop pretending otherwise.

This brings me back to the pomp and circumstance. I am not a girl that hopes for flowers and chocolates on valentines day because it seems contrived and fake. If my boyfriend loves me, chocolates and flowers dont prove anything but lack of creativity. But in America they're like a box you tick to prove something, to show your friends. I have a British friend who proposed to his girlfriend with a specially crafted box, when I told this to a table of co-workers over lunch they all considered it blasphemy. I had thought it was the greatest expression of love I'd ever heard... I sat there silently trying to work it all out in my head after that. I guess for me what it comes down to is if at the end of 90 minutes to teams have a draw, they have a draw, if you have to have a definitive answer, well, you can have your penalty kicks, but isn't that kind of fake, sure, it can give you a black and white answer, but it's not real, it's a decisive decision on penalty kicks, not the game itself. In love you can label and define, and you can follow the pop culture traditions of candy chocolates, and engagement rings, but it doesn't mean love anymore than penalty kicks define a winner. I like a life better when we aren't following some script, when we aren't joking for some position and we can't follow a manual. In black and white we gag all the possibility out of everything. Without an engagement proposal I told my friend, what story would I tell our kids (this is a sensitive topic for me because I was disappointed my parents didn't have a good story to tell, they just got married after my dad graduated from college)? But the truth is I have a far better story than most, the story of our chance meeting in New York, leaving everything for a chance possibility in Chile and then Paris, no engagement story can capture all of that.

Hot in the City

New York is a cement oven in summer, but then you only have to deal with it on the street, because every time you walk through the threshold of a door you get smacked upside the head with the unescapable sense of walking into a meat locker. For some reason, when I remember this feeling, it's always a Best Buy that I'm walking into; which makes no sense considering I don't shop at Best Buy. Still, it's not easy to dress for a day that will vacillate between breaking a sweat with the mere effort it takes to breath, to the frozen tundra of Wisconsin in January. I am not equip with any kind of personal bodily cooling reflex so I dress for the heat. I am totally totally unfit for heat, simply looking at people wearing pants or god forbid, jeans in any kind of heat sends me into an anxiety attack. These people seem totally fine in 90 degree weather wearing their body constricting jeans but just looking at them sends my body temperature 2 to 3 degrees higher. It's like phantom pains, as I imagine what I would feel like if I had my own pair of tight jeans on.

So moving to Europe, well, I should have remembered what it was like at the Whitehorse in London summer of 2003. I lived above the pub with 10 or so others, I remember we had a fan, maybe two if we were quick enough to take the one from the common room, and we slept in the position of a jumping jack, or as if we were making snow angels. No touching.

Paris went from October weather, to August, overnight, there was no May, no June, no in between, scorching 90 degrees after day upon day of 50 degree rain. A week ago I asked Sylvain if we could get a fan, imagining a fan so big and powerful, he'd never expect me to be the one to lug it home from the store. Tonight the only conversation I've been able to muster has dealt uniquely with my personal hotness and why he doesn't feel as affected as I do. I mentioned the fan again, which he said I could go get whenever I wanted, "but babe" I said, "don't you think you should carry it home, since I already lug the groceries" then he looked at me and made a circular shape with his hands showing me a fan that wouldn't span more than 8 inches in diameter. But that won't be of any use, I say, we need something powerful. My heart is set on the fan's that my employers bought in April, one's that look like big round TV sets, the kind of TV sets rich people have in their bedrooms.

Still this no AC thing, I'm kind of all for it. I don't get for example why stores can't just turn on the AC, why do they have to make it meat locker cold? I mean, it's makes dealing with the heat that much harder to bear when leaving the meat locker space. I know it feels good to have those sweat droplets on the backs of your legs and dripping down your back freeze dried within moments of entering the AC'd space, but it would feel just as nice to walk into a cool space that isn't refrigerated. With all the talk of high energy cost, and environmental damage, AC is a major offense. I respect Europeans for their ability to make a fan work for them. The Metro here has no AC and no one even seems to notice, there are no window AC's it's not even an option that registers for these people. Although if it did, it's be pretty hard to fit into these French windows that open up like doors. In August I'm going to visit my parents for a week, if I come home in summer I pack my winter sweaters and sweatshirts. Wisconsin gets as toasty as anywhere else in summer, but my parents blast the AC to an uncomfortable level, especially considering they live in the country and simply opening the windows would offer the ideal nighttime sleeping, breezy and cool, walking up with the natural morning instead of the climate controlled AC that has me layering another quilt on so I don't catch a cold. In New York I used my fan ever night, over the years I'd used it year round to drown out the noise of rowdy roommates, to keep me cool, to muffle the street noise of New York, I'm gonna put that fan in my room this August close the vents and open the window,