Paris (Say it with the French accent, you know you want to) Part One

Just last week, I took a school trip to Paris. Did you know that it's the 3rd most visited city in the world? It gets more than 42 million visiters a year.. 58 of those were my class. We took a bus from Rennes to Paris - that's a glorious five hour drive, I believe? And it snowed on the way, too! Just the light, wet snow because it's France and it's not really supposed to snow here.

Bus buddy + diet coke = A wonderful five hours

Our first stop was Versailles. It's right outside of Paris, so before we actually made it into the city we stopped there. It was freezing. And it's huge. You have to go in with a goal, otherwise you'll get stuck in one room with a pretty ceiling and you'll stand in awe as you try to compare your own house to just that room, and you know, they're probably around the same size. You could probably fit your house and your neighbor's house into that one room, if you really tried. Plus there's the part where the ceilings are so carefully painted with so much detail, and thinking back you remember that your ceilings are white. If you're lucky, you have the popcorn ceilings to add some pizazz - if you're lucky.

©Laura

This isn't even the full thing. This is practically the entrance, the prologue to a very, very, very thick book. It's also crooked. 

Ba-BAM (Use the Raven Symone voice from That's So Raven, s'il vous plaît).

©Laura

The ceilings!!

 ©Laura

And the gardens! (Think gaaaaaaahdens, dahhling)

Strolling through these gardens was a completely different experience for me this time (I visited Versailles with my mom, sister and Auntie Andi in the spring of '07, when the sun was shining and it was much warmer). This stroll was more of a light jog in an attempt to not lose all of my fingers and toes to the glorious temperature outside. 

©Laura

I don't really know what's happening here, but our hotel was right by Place de la Bastille, which was a lovely place to be. 

Snow! (And oh look, it's Melanie in the bottom left. Hi Melanie!) It never, ever snows in France. Not in Rennes nor Paris, at least. So this was exciting, unexpected, and cold.

©Laura

On our walk to the Musée d'Orsay.. it was still snowing!

A lot of bridges in Paris have locks locked to them. Couples & friends attach a lock to the bridge and throw the key in the water to represent their never ending love or something cheesy like that. 

At the Musée d'Orsay, we were free to explore at our leisure, no tour guides, no school groups, just a big museum and a lot of time. Jenny and I snuck away from the direct crowd headed for the center stage and went up to the 5th floor: Impressionism. There were 5 rooms filled with Impressionist paintings, and we spent hours staring at them, looking at the frames, the colors, the details and the blurs and discussing what we liked and what we didn't like. We were speaking in French, too, and played this game where, when a French person was nearby, we'd go up to them and ask how to say a certain something in French. Like watering can. Looking at a Degas painting of ballerinas, there was a watering can in the corner, but we weren't sure how to say that. We asked a kind-looking older woman next to us, and not only did we learn that arrosoir meant watering can, we learned that they used them to pour something (I can't remember what) on the floors so that the ballerinas didn't slip. 

After the Musée d'Orsay, some of us had a show to see. We were split into two groups, one group to see a show at La Comédie Française on Sunday, and one to see a show on Monday. So after the museum I headed off with Laura and Darby to La Comédie Française to see Troïlus et Cressida, a Shakespeare play translated in French. 

We got lost.

Here we have the Paris metro. Let's take a look at number 1. That is where the Musée d'Orsay is, and where we started. Then let's follow the arrow to number two. We sort of followed the river, crossed a bridge, crossed back, walked away from the river to the middle of the city, and then followed the tip of the Eiffle Tower to find our way there, to find a metro station. We get on the metro, take two different ones, and end up at number 3, Palais Royal, our final destination. Let's just say we were a bit late for the show. 

©Laura

©Laura

These were our "Oh, look, we're in Paris and we're at the metro and we're kind of lost" pictures. Cute, right?

However - it was an adventure. There's nothing like coming to know Paris by getting lost in Paris. And we weren't lost in the oh-my-gosh-where-do-we-go-from-here way, but more of a wow-we're-kind-of-displaced-let's-find-the-nearest-metro. Proper usage of dashes? Probably not.

Blast from the past! I was but a babe the last time I visited Paris..

This Shakespeare play though.. I was not particularly captivated, but uh, neither were many other people. So once we reached intermission we were given permission to leave the theater and roam the streets of Paris, which we did, starting with a café.

©Laura

©Laura

Darby and I have a small obsession with mustard. Black & white to make us classy!

That's enough for today, don't you think? Yes, I do believe so. Have a lovely whatever time of day it is!

...In other news, my email is backed up to the moon with harassing emails from colleges, so feel free to send me something. Anything. I'm begging you.

On Languages.

This past weekend, Melanie and I challenged ourselves to speak French and only French for an entire week. We wrote up a contract and signed it (whoever loses has to pay for our next night out, and I'm cheap!), and we have been speaking French (to the annoyance of the English-speakers around us.. sorry!) constantly, omitting English and math class, and this blog post, of course. If you're thinking, well, what's the difference between you speaking French constantly and a regular day? You see, I go to a school with 59 other English-speaking students. It can be a lot easier to just speak English to each other, despite our French-based classes. Speaking French consistently - it's been incredible. My host mom even told me last night that I have made much progress (cheering over here by myself, woo)!

Speaking so much French is so little time, I've begun to notice things. French and English are different. The French language is a very precise language, and the English language is a very specific language. Those are two completely different things. French is a very literal language - English is not. Shall we look at some examples?

On precision vs. specificity: Colors
Let's use the color red. Picture red in your mind - just your basic red. Rouge, in French. Now, we want to get a little bit darker. Can you see it? Good, now let's name it. In French you would have rouge foncé (dark red), but we could delve a bit deeper. We could say rouge bordeaux. Bordeaux? It's a type of wine, and a dark shade of red! There's also rouge bourgogne, another wine, and another shade of dark red. Precision! In English you would have brick red, mahogany, rust. The French give you a precise shade of red, but the English are pretty specific.

French is literal. Literally.
Rainbows -
English: Bows of rain? No. Bows coming from rain? Still no. They come after rain, but bow?
French: Arc en ciel. Arc in the sky. Pretty self explanatory.
Eggplant -
English: Not of an egg, not resembling an egg, not the color of an egg, not coming from an egg.. Yes, it's a plant.
French: Well, aubergine. It's just a word, but at least it doesn't mention eggs.

And then there are the words and phrases that are the direct translation, from English to French, French to English, and it's just so silly when you think about it.
Honeymoon. We all know what that is - it has nothing to do with the literal moon, or honey. In French: la lune de miel, it is literally the moon of honey. In English, although it doesn't make sense, the French don't do any better, they just make it more literal. And from what I've heard, honeymoons have nothing to do with moons made of honey.

I found this link really funny, especially since I completely understand. It talks about how each word in French is either feminine or masculine, and sometimes without rhyme or reason. Then there's English, and all words are unisex - it's odd that dishes are feminine but bowls are masculine. What gives?

Living in France, living with a French family, being surrounded by the French world.. You pick up the slang terms. So.. swears. The thing about swearing is, when you don't know the full effect behind it, it's not quite as offensive. It's just a word! It has no negative connotation (that you know of) behind it, and therefore it may or may not be used freely in between English conversation because, well hey, only you know that you're swearing like a sailor! Last night at dinner we were having raspberries with fromage blanc and sugar for dessert. The whole family was there - even Frédérique's mother. I was adding sugar to my fromage blanc, straight from the box, when way too much came out. My first instinct? "Merde!"(Don't worry, it's not too bad). And then I slapped my hand over my mouth and started apologizing to everyone - the word meant nothing to me, but it did to them! I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect them to all laugh and cheer and congratulate me - which is what they did. She's swearing in French, look at her go! I guess my lack of grace is a sign of my improvement. And I'm sure my parents will love that I'm using my best manners! :)

Then there is the really amusing, slightly awkward English-words-in-French fun. A couple of nights ago, I was eating dinner with my family, and we had salad with beets. My host dad pointed to the beets in the salad and asked what they were called, and I replied "beets". Everyone at the table started giggling, and Gabriel said that the Americans are funny. I was thinking, well sure, I guess beets is a funny sounding word. But then Nathanel, who was sitting across the table, was pointing down and yelling "Beets, beets, beets!". I started to get why they were laughing, but just to clarify, Jean Baptiste turned to me and said, "You know.. Penis." So if you're looking for a beet salad in France, be sure to skip the Franglais and just ask for "betterave", because you definitely don't want to order "bites".

...Speaking of "bites", guess what Melanie accidentally got for lunch on Tuesday! (It's true - we were deceived by what we thought was saucisson (sausage) and instead got the bite of a cow!). Oh, French cuisine, how you woe us with your diversity.

Cookies & Christmas

I know, it's too early for this! But I'm allowed to, right? We're past All Saints Day, and there isn't Halloween or Thanksgiving here.

While most of my family is out of town, Melanie is staying over to keep me company. We woke up at an unacceptably late time and then made sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies while playing lots of Christmas music. It was glorious.

Ignore my singing. Think Christmas and cookies. 

Melanie is so pleased with her method of dough-rolling. 

She did something amazing with a glass, butter and sugar. 

The first batch of sugar cookies. Absolutely beautiful. 

Right?!

This butter.. The chocolate chip cookies called for melted butter that was cooled - not only did our butter cool, but it congealed itself into a disgusting mass of, well, this. 

These cookies look like whole-wheat cookies. Trust me, they aren't. 

Baking in France is a bit different than baking in America. For one, there is the fact that for some reason, the United States was so hipster as to make its own system of measurements for cooking. Thanks! The metric system would've worked just fine! There's the conversion from fahrenheit to celsius, then cups and tablespoons to grams and liters. Then, once you've successfully translated the measurements from US to metric, you have to translate the ingredients from English to French. Baking soda? Bicarbonate de soude. Brown sugar? Doesn't really exist in France! See what a fun game this translating can be? So yes, there is a name for brown sugar, but no, if you go into a grocery store looking for it, you may be lucky (as Melanie and I were) if you find small packets of this sort-of brown sugar stuff. It didn't smell quite right, and it was really dark, hence the "whole-wheat" look.

But despite the small difficulties in trying to bake like an American in France, it was worth it. Telling Marie that she could have all of the cookies? The look on her face (sheer joy, I must tell you) was priceless. 

Milk.

Today we're going to cover a very serious topic. I've postponed it for far too long, and the world needs to be educated. Today we're talking about milk. That's right. The title up there wasn't just a creative little thing I came up with all on my own. We're speaking the truth right now. No holding back. I'm saying what needs to be said. Let's continue:

You walk into a grocery store looking for milk! You head straight to the refrigerated section - Stop right there! You've already gone too far. You have a puzzled look on your face. Must I remind you that we're in a French grocery store? You nod in recognition and turn back towards the refrigerators. Stop!! Did you not just hear what I said? French. In France. Things are different here. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. This is the real world. You look at me in bewilderment. You're thinking, Where do I go? If it's not in the refrigerated section.. Am I at the wrong place? Do they have separate milk stores in France?

Oh, silly, silly you. You've got one thing right - the grocery store is where you need to be! But let me guide you, past the aisle of bread (Don't even think about pausing for a second. That's dangerous stuff right there!), through the dry sections of the grocery store, until we find ourselves in the Dairy aisle. But wait, you think. There aren't any refrigerators here! All I see are boxes and bottles of bleach! You must be wrong. But, oh no, my friend. I'm not wrong. You've just reached the milk section. It's a bit unnerving, isn't it? You could be looking at a long road of recovery. It comes with time. Now take a step. That's it, just a bit more.. There! The milk is in front of you. What?? I see why you're confused. The milk looks like this:

Oops, that's the mug shot!

This one's less menacing. Do you see how this milk and bleach are cousins? Very close cousins? This milk screams bleach when you're walking down the dairy aisle and you just stare in confusion.

And the boxed milk. A bit familiar, right?

Now let's tackle the big question. Why aren't these boxes of milk in the refrigerator? Well friends, take a look at the bleach - I mean milk - up there. You should see something that says "Stérilisé UHT". Do you know what that means? This milk is long-life. It ain't fresh. No, no, sir. This milk can sit in the cabinet with the vacuum cleaner for weeks or months, if you so wish, and you can take it out and use it whenever you please! Personally, though, this long-life milk only flies when it has some Nesquik mixed in with it. That's the real way to go. And I wasn't exaggerating about the vacuum cleaner cabinet. That's where it is! Once that baby's been opened though, it goes into the fridge (Thankyouthankyouthankyou!). 

And that's all we have on today's news. I'm Elizabeth Ollero, bringing world news to you!