Some {Mostly} Intellectual Outings

{Tuesday, September 16}

The rest of Sunday was quite pleasant; Monica sent me a text message on Saturday night suggesting that we visit the Sorbonne and eat lunch around 2, which is just what we did. On our way to the first destination, we encountered Montaigne {inventor of the essay! among his other accomplishments},

and some British tourists who didn’t know who he was, which made us feel wicked smaht. The Sorbonne itself is very pretty, but sadly undergoing some construction/renovation at the moment, hence the scaffolding.

We also found a bust of a famous figure with a bird on his head – awesome.

Next, it was time to seek out a café or restaurant of some sort that wasn’t going to rob us blind, and would hopefully even provide a tasty meal. We found a place that fit the bill and THEN some. Le Marathon, with its welcome goat, entertaining wait staff, and candlelit ambiance, has a 10 € “menu” from which you pick an entrée {appetizer}, plat {main course}, and dessert {duh}. While this is a common occurrence here, the “menu”s are usually not wicked exciting {e.g. cold chicken leg and small salad for 9 €} and often expensive for what they are. Not here. For 10 €, I got a small bowl of steamed mussels, a decent-sized steak au poivre with a small salad and fries, and a softball-sized serving of chocolate mousse for dessert. Not to mention the bread was delicious, our server was an elegant and charming middle-aged man who made us feel like queens, asked if we were French {yes!}, and warmly welcomed us without a hint of irony when he learned that we were American, and every bite of every course was heavenly. Poor Monica had to eat dinner with her host family later that night, while I enjoyed being full all day and not spending a cent on food afterward. While $15 may seem like a lot, it’s incredibly rare to find such a meal in Paris for so little, so I recommend that anyone coming to Paris go there – it’s on a side street in the Quartier Latin and, if you come in the next three months, I’ll take you there myself. Definitely my favorite meal so far.

Quite content, we then walked just down the street and turned the corner, where the famous English-language bookstore Shakespeare & Co. awaited us. The selection is decent, from history books to beat poetry to, of course, Shakespeare, and the shop itself is inviting and pleasing to the eye.

We plan to return some time for Monday night poetry readings, nerds that we are.

We wandered along the Seine looking at the various products of the bouquinistes, Parisians who set up shop and sell {mostly to tourists} postcards, posters, magnets, hand mirrors, and cigarette-case wallets, all decorated with classic French images like the Eiffel Tower and old ads for the Moulin Rouge. Then we crossed to Notre-Dame and gazed at some of the tourists shops in the area before catching the metro back to Levallois.

Funny enough, when I returned, Cyprien {my host ‘brother’} asked where I had gone. I find this amusing because the other times I’ve gone out and left only him home, I’ve told him where I was going, as a courtesy or in case his mother came home and was curious, and he has responded with naught but sarcasm. The first time {this past Thursday}:

Caroline: Je vais aller rencontrer une amie {I’m going out to meet up with a friend}.
Cyprien: T’as le droit {You have the right}.

I figured this was an indicator that he was not interested in what I was doing and that he didn’t feel an overwhelming need to hear about it. Cool. Still, a couple of nights later, I needed to go find something to eat for dinner. Cyprien, the only other person in the apartment, was in the living room, which is right next to the door. Well, it’s rude to leave without saying goodbye, so quickly before leaving…

Caroline: J’vais chercher le dîner {I’m gonna go look for some dinner}.
Cyprien: C’est une bonne idée {That’s a good idea}.

Ah, well. So much for being polite. I now leave the house without a word.

Yesterday morning meant once again waking up at 7 for French class. I’m really not thrilled about having a 9 AM class every day, but at least for the moment it’s a grammar review, and when real classes start it’ll be theatre every other day {not fun, playing theatre, but the study kind of theatre. I’m still excited, though}. After talking about concordance of tense for eight forevers, I went and got the traditional lunch with Cody. We get along extremely well, and have the same dry sense of humor, which is nice. I signed up at the last minute for the free excursion to the Louvre, which Cody and Monica also went on. At the entrance, I couldn’t find my ticket, and everyone walked ahead and the tour continued without me. Had I not heard the docent say “Tout droite” {“Straight ahead”} on the radio headset that they’d given to each of us just before she got out of range, I would have been lost in the Louvre, which happens quite easily, let me tell you. Fortunately, I caught up with everyone a minute later, and off we went. I took a few pictures for your viewing pleasure and/or pain, and some for myself, but mostly I figure you know what’s in the Louvre, or you’ve been there, or you can go someday, and people have taken much clearer pictures of these works in much better lighting with much nicer cameras.

A statue of "La Victoire" {Victory} that I really liked.

The hour or so tour we took was just to see the really famous statues and paintings, as a sort of introduction to the Louvre. Needless to say, I saw the Mona Lisa {here they call it “La Joconde”}, from a great distance and behind a cordon and a crowd of people. Magnificent, of course, and I appreciated it very much, but the details of the painting are the most important feature, and you can’t see details from 30 feet away. Bummer.

Cody, Monica, and I set off to explore a bit before going home, and ended up in the same area that Monica and I had visited on Thursday, off of the rue Saint-Denis near the Halles Garden. We were looking for relatively cheap coffee and a place to sit, but first we had to battle a three-headed monster – ourselves. Monica refers to herself as “indecisive”, Cody is “indifferent”, and I went with “ambivalent” as my personal descriptor. So who took the lead in this quest for caffeine? I did. Not by choice, mind you, but I have become the inadvertent leader of all three small groups in which I’ve spent much time. I’ve even tried to pass the buck, or to cede my title – when Stephen, Samuel, and Julian asked if it was “alright” to go to Place de Clichy, I said, “Je suis pas la maîtresse, moi” {“I’m not the kindergarten teacher”}, but to no avail.

So I led us to the Café Coeur Couronné {the Crowned Heart Café}, where we did not drink coffee, but in fact ate brownies {the girls} and drank cider {Cody}. And if you thought Cody and I were a sarcastic force when the two of us converse, Cody, Monica, and I are unstoppable. Lots of laughs, mostly requiring oral description and/or “You had to be there” moments, but trust me, it was epic.

Back in Levallois, I ate dinner and hung around before deciding definitively that, illness and all, I was going to go out to a jazz club to which Samuel had invited me. I figured, with no cover charge, that I could get there at 10, stay for a short while, then take the metro back and be in bed by 11:15 or so. Besides, Samuel was supposed to play, which I wanted to hear. I found him, Elissa from my French class, and another girl in the street , and we got to Le Baiser Salé {The Salty Kiss} at 10:10 or so, and climbed the stairs to…a completely empty room. Well, not empty in the sense that there were chairs, and a stage, and instruments, but there was quite literally no one else there. The girls looked confused, checked their watches and said, “J’ai pensé que ça commençait à dix heures” {“I thought it was supposed to start at ten”}. Samuel shrugged. I caught his eye, smiled, and said, “L’heure du jazz”.

Jazz time. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, jazz time is, essentially, based on the fact that no one is on time {we could go for a grand metaphor about syncopation here, but I’ll keep it simple}. So when the rest of the audience arrived at 10:30, I nodded knowingly. They are wise in the ways of the jazz masters. Everything starts late.

So besides the cool name, hot music, and deliciously flamboyant waiter from Martinique, Le Baiser Salé is great because it has no cover charge…or so we thought. Here’s how it goes: the first drink is obligatory. So we bought the cheapest {4,80 €} beer – no problem. Oh, and did we mention that the first drink has an extra 7 € fee tacked onto it? We didn’t. O, elusive cover charge, I think I have found thee. Here’s to $17 beer.