Arty Farty...Party

{Monday, October 6}

So Tuesday was a day of more classes, then lots of homework, because I had to prepare my Tintin exposé. As I was slaving away in my room, reading about everything from Hergé's political views to the famous blond cowlick, Bénédicte came in and told me that Cyprien had passed his law exams {think the French and German equivalents of the LSAT}, so they had decided to have an apéritif. Ooh, my first one.

Given the choice among the table wine, whiskey, and Port, I chose the last one, which was incredibly sweet {I know, I know; what did I expect?}, and went...interestingly with the slices of sausage and peanuts, not to mention straight to my head {that's what I get for having an early lunch}. Still, it was nice to feel included, and to chat about differences in our educational systems. Afterward, it was time for dinner - roast duck, freshly caught by a friend of Romain, the eldest son. Absolutely delicious, except for every once in a while, when I found something small and too difficult to chew, and tried to discreetly remove it from my mouth, even though I figured it might be better to just try and swallow it, so as not to appear rude. After dinner, Benoît looked over at my plate and said with surprise, "Ah, Caroline! Tu as trouvé trois plombs!" {"Ah, Caroline! You found three pellets!"} This was quite a relief, as it was then clear that no one expected me to digest the ammunition.

Wednesday morning, I presented my exposé, which went brilliantly: the semi-strict, intimidating professor announced to the class afterward, "Voici notre premier exposé, qui a été parfait" {"That was our first exposé, which was perfect"}. Needless to say, that made my day. More classes, then Cody and I took advantage of a free theatre ticket from Bertrand in the IES office, heading up to the Manufacture des Abbesses in Montmartre. It was a one-woman show called "La Folle Allure" {basically, "The Crazy Speed"; not a great translation, but a rather difficult one, as well}; the character recounted various tales from her life, with occasional interludes of interpretive dance. Overall, I liked it {could've done without the dancing, but some of it was to Bach, the character's favorite composer}, and the actress was absolutely jacked. You couldn't tell at first, but as her costume evolved with her character {becoming much more simple as she became comfortable with herself}, you could see more of her arms {which reminded me, Jessica, of our buff waitressing arms}, which she also used to suspend herself from a makeshift swingset on the stage. Very impressive. We found some other IES students at the show {Amy, Andy, and Hayley}, and together we found a nice Italian restaurant down the street and had both a delicious dinner and a decadent dessert {dark chocolate and coffee ice cream with Chantilly - mmm}.

Nothing to shout about for Thursday. Friday, however...I mostly read and hung around in the morning, but around 4:30 Monica and I headed out to get dinner with Cody before the wicked exciting, ever-so-geeky main event of the evening - going to the Louvre! Melissa hadn't been yet, we have cards that get us in for free, it doesn't open till 6 PM on Fridays, and you cannot say you've seen the Louvre unless you've been at least 5 times. Bare minimum.

So, nerds that we are, we spent our Friday night at the Louvre...which was incredible. Beyond the obvious appeal, we also had Melissa, who happens to be an art history/anthropology major, adding her two cents to our knowledge of the artwork and, as we walked into one of the galleries on the top floor, we discovered a very talented pianist accompanying the sunset in creating an entirely new tone in the room.

After a few minutes, he began to play an avant-garde piece, wherein he muted some of the strings with clothespins - a similar effect to palm muting a guitar. Fortunately, the piece was also melodic, so none of us felt an overwhelming need to rip our ears off; I quite enjoyed it, actually.

In the next room, we noticed one of the well-dressed-in-basic-black group that we'd seen entering at the same time as us. She was studying a Fragonard painting from one of the benches, then walked toward it and began to read the caption, turning back as if she were shouting to someone at the back of the room. Suddenly, a rather attractive young gentleman began to correct her interpretation of the painting, emphasizing the, ahem, romantic aspects of the relationship between the subjects and addressing the young woman in a slightly sketchy but charismatic and seductive sort of way, like the scene on the ghost train in "Amélie". At the end of their entrancing dialogue, they simply ran away. Their chemistry was also ridiculous; we saw four or five more actors explicating paintings in the form of a scene, but none were as impressive as the first two.


This is one of my favorite administrative parts of the Louvre; notice that the 'no dogs' graphic is a French poodle. Yes.

We stayed till the building closed at 10, then braved the cold on a walk down to St-Michel, where we grabbed another bite to eat {dinner had been unimpressive and insufficient} at a small Middle Eastern place; a short, middle-aged Frenchman there jived to the sounds of James Brown and the various disco, soul, hip-hop, and other odd American selections on the radio. We enjoyed our time there and left as they were closing at midnight, eternally grateful that we had not spotted the mouse nosing around in the corner while we still had our food. Bravo. We then hung out at Who's bar until it was time to catch the metro, enthusiastically singing along with the band covering such American tunes as "How You Remind Me", "Proud Mary", "Chop Suey", and "Mustang Sally". A lovely evening overall.


The crew at Who's. You can't really tell, but that coaster for Hoegaarden beer says "Give me a call! <3/caroline";>


This blurry picture wasn't meant to be artsy; I just liked the floating candle.

On Saturday, the twins and I wandered around Levallois, eating lunch {complete with HBO-quality entertainment from a balcony where stood a girl in a bathrobe and her boyfriend who had climbed up via a pipe and a metal awning; the waitress noticed us watching and said, "Ah, ça se passe tous les jours" - "Oh, yeah, that happens every day"}, then checking out the various open markets, where I found some rather European gloves.



Back in Melissa's dorm room, we looked for tickets to London {to no avail} and had some hair-dying fun before I left to meet Cody for "Nuit Blanche" - more on this fabulously Parisian phenomenon later.