Italy

I just got back from Italy yesterday, and I don't even know where to start!

Maybe here, at the beginning:

Or here, at the end:

But it really seems more appropriate to start in the middle:

because eating was mostly all I did, and well! I much preferred the food in Florence to the food in Paris, even if the pastries were sad. The CHEESE! The PROSCIUTTO! The bread was weird though, kind of tough and dry everywhere we went. Either way, it was really great to get out of the city and see another one...in another country! It's so weird how easy it was to get to, too (even though to get home, I had to take a train to a plane to a bus to the metro, that was a long day). It was great to see pretty much all of the art I studied last semester though, it really changed my perspective on some of the work. My favorite part, though (besides the food) was just walking around, getting outside of the already tourist heavy center, across the Arno to some of the more authentic parts of town.

Madame

I've realized I haven't told you much about my home stay, and there really is so much to tell, so I think my next few posts will feature some of the lovely characters with whom I cohabitate.

First up: My host mother, Madame Raynaud.

Madame Raynaud loves her 3 year old cocker spaniel, Edgar, but hates her grandkids' dog, Jedi (no, that's not a common French name--they love Star Wars). But you'll hear more about Edgar later.

Madame Raynaud runs a childcare out of her house with (I think) two other women who are sometimes here: one woman is very chatty and nice, but smokes inside (I've only seen her twice), and one who is very mean and kind of racist, and never says bonjour to me. They are usually only here when Madame goes to pick up the older kids from school (the babies are here all day) and when she goes to the grocery store. In my head, those are the only two places Madame ever goes when she leaves the house--I don't think she ever leaves the 16eme, which is basically only a residential neighborhood.

I think Madame Raynaud doesn't think I'm very smart. She is always telling Audrey, my roommate, how well she speaks and how much she understands in French, but all she ever says to me is "Where is your scarf! You are going to get sick! Go put on a scarf, why do you never wear one?!" Or "Tres Belle!" whenever I wear a skirt, or like last night, my silver shiny jeans. So Audrey is smart, and I wear pretty clothes, and not enough of them. According to Audrey, last week, Madame Raynaud said that I understood a lot and Audrey was excited for me--this of course was news to me, because I either DID NOT UNDERSTAND that she said I UNDERSTOOD THINGS, or I just wasn't listening, which is great.

Edit: I had this post up on my computer ready to post, but something has changed! I just had one of my two weekly meals with Madame, and she said I spoke much better than I used to! She didn't compliment my skirt, though. I guess I've graduated from "belle" to "intelligente."

I feel like I have so much to talk about! Here are some of the highlights:

-Today was a DOUBLE CREPE DAY! Spinach, tomato, onion, and mushroom for dinner, sugar and lemon (my favorite) for dessert

-Yesterday I went to the Musee D'Orsay for a paper (that I worked on today and WILL FINISH THIS WEEKEND). I brought my new small notebook, but of course I had no pen! I asked one of the guys at what I realized was a gift shop, not an info desk, if I could borrow a pen, just a regular one--in french! And I'm pretty sure it was nearly grammatically correct because when he snidely responded in English, he asked how long I wanted it for. When I said 30 minutes, he said I needed to buy one! So I sadly picked up a Valentines Day/Edgar Degas themed 2 euro pen and walked towards the check out table, another guy who worked there ran over and offered me the pen from his pocket! I made sure to thank the first guy on my way to the Impressionists, and he said "Forgive me, I was being a beast to you with no manners."

-I have trips planned to Florence next weekend, and Belgium the weekend after! I'm so excited to head out of town--not that I don't love Paris, but it's kind of stressful. It will be fun to see something else, it's kind of why I came here.

Another fashion update

1. I got not one, not two, but three different compliments on the sweater (the brownish one) that I knitted! Just today!

2. My photo professor, who is British, was wearing a tangerine colored button down that clashed nicely with his dark red tie, which also had a repeating Wallace & Gromit print on it. Halfway through class I noticed his socks matched, except with a bigger icon.

He says phrases like "And Bob's your uncle!" when things go well.

Rain

When I walked out of my apartment today, the ground was wet like it rained last night, or at least like the snow had melted. I've never been so happy to say the word melt!! Especially since this weekend was strangely dusty (my boots are covered, and even the snow wasn't even grey/sludgey it was this gritty dust color) everything seemed so clean and new even though it's still grey skies.

When the streets are clean in Paris, it's a big deal. For some reason, no one cleans up after their dogs here; my class asked my French professor about it on the first week of school, and I'm pretty sure he said something like "It's like Italy sometimes, people don't care about rules." And it's true--red lights are hardly even a suggestion here. Every morning on our walk to school, my roommate and I are constantly telling each other to watch where we walk, usually in time to avoid disaster but sometimes an unfortunate second too late (for me, at least). The snow, though, was funnier: Last week, also on a morning walk to school, I saw a group of kids coming towards me, and it was like a movie. I saw the dog poop. I saw a girl, maybe 7 years old, laughing, oblivious of what was inevitably going to happen. I saw her pink shoes, aiming directly towards their target. But as she approached and stepped right on the pile, nothing happened. She kept laughing and walking, and even weirder, the poop kept the same...shape. No footprint or horrible squelch noise or anything. And then I realized: IT HAD FROZEN SOLID TO THE SIDEWALK.

So, I am happy for rain.

"What's said in an art museum should never be taken seriously."

I love the Musee L'Orangerie! I didn't know much about it before I went on Saturday, except that it was built for Monet's "Nymphaeas" and that he never actually got to see them in situ. It was so peaceful and lovely, and bigger than I thought it would be. The bottom floor also had artists that I had never heard of before (I especially liked one called Maurice Utrillo) and Picasso etchings that looked so far from anything I'd ever seen--really early stuff. It was great! I will definitely be dragging anyone who comes to visit me there!

Afterwards, I had a lovely French lunch in St. Germain (the best quiche lorraine I've ever had, but I was also cold and it was hot). Then Olivia and I headed out towards St. Germaine to walk around and try to find one of the famous (Laduree) macaron places, but we were sidetracked by a giant parade-style protest! We couldn't tell what they were mad about or trying to change, but their posters proclaimed that they were vegan...very angry vegans...so our walk was basically just trying to avoid them. We ended up at Pierre Herme, a different famous macaron place (famous for weird flavors, like fois gras!) I got three flavors: salted caramel, rose and raspberry, and creme brulee (vanilla and caramel). Rose was my favorite. It was lovely eating them on the steps of the Saint Sulpice* in the last of the day's sunlight. The fountain is frozen over, and there were kids climbing onto it and slipping around...it was lovely.

Then, Olivia and I went back to her homestay (her family is just lovely!) and decided to make soup for dinner (the kids and her friend from Cooper Union were joining us). We decided on Butternut squash soup, because that sounded warm and delicious, and also because she SWORE by this apple and squash soup recipe from MarthaStewart.com (hm). I carefully google translated all of the different vegetables and spices we would need, and we headed to the local Monoprix. The weird thing was, there was squash and it had the same name as what I had written down, but it wasn't butternut. We went for it anyway, but we had to go to another market for onions (where of course, they had butternut squash!). Also, halfway through cooking we realized 1) we had a lot more ingredients than the recipe called for and 2) we had a lot more people coming than we expected, so we decided to forgo proportions and just mix up everything we purchased, putting spices in last.

Remind me not to do that again.

Not that it was bad, it just tasted like water when we tried it! I had to tell Olivia that we didn't even have ANY salt in this whole VAT of soup, so we'd need a ton, but she was upset that it didn't taste butternutty. It turns out, there was actually a different recipe she followed before, so that's why it tasted different (besides the whole mystery squash ordeal). We experimented a bit and added more things as we immersion-blended, and finally after a good dose of (homemade from the tree!) olive oil and creme fraiche, it tasted great! Soup + some salad + a teensy bit of veal +oranges with cinnamon sprinkled on top = a fantastic (healthy) dinner! The kids were teenagers and really nice too.

The next day, the three of us went to the Musee D'Orsay just for about an hour, and I got to see the simply amazing collection of Toulouse-Lautrec work. His drawings are just so cool--and is it bad that I want all of the can-can dancers outfits? There were also the REALLY cool diorama things? You look through a small window into these impossibly intricate little worlds, forests and shipping ports and more abstract things. Really incredible. Then a glass of wine in the 6th at a place called La Palette, which had these funny old mirrors, 1920s style mosaics, and then oil paintings all over. Fun weekend!

*Have I mentioned how much I love the Saint Sulpice? So much! My embarrassing admission is that I just started reading the Da Vinci Code again, even though one of my professors just bashed it for being so geographically (and historically, I assume) incorrect. It takes place in the church! But I am too ashamed to carry it around.

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while—I was sick last weekend, and had to miss NYU’s free trip to the Abbey of Royaumont (or something), skipping the delicious-sounding 4 course meal (and 20F outdoor tour, yikes!) to instead watch Downton Abbey. I think my (warm, snuggly, out of the snow) Abbey won.

Despite a kind of wasted last weekend, I’ve had a VERY cultural week!

On Monday and Tuesday I was still taking it easy (I was still kind of sick), but on Wednesday I had a busy day! I had to wake up really early because my French class was going to a French high school (actually a performing arts (except with sports?) high school…the pink hair was familiar) to speak with French kids in French. Next time, we’ll talk in English to help with their English, and alternate a few times. Anyway it was OK, but not helpful enough that it was worth getting up an hour and a half early for. Then my art history class was at the Musee D’Orsay, which was great because I hadn’t been their yet! We saw a good amount of the museum, starting with Millet, and working our way through Courbet and Manet, and then up to the Impressionist floor for Monet and Renoir. It was a great class—I really didn’t know anything about Impressionism—but the professor didn’t give us a break during the three hour class, so I was ready to go when we left. After a quick nap, I went with my roommate to see Egisto at the Opera Comique (We were allowed to pick one of a selection of operas and ballets through my program, and I chose a ballet at the Opera Garnier, the famously beautiful Opera here. They had extra tickets to Egisto, though, so I took one!). I had never been to an Opera before, but many of my professors have worked at the Houston Grand Opera, so I’ve seen a lot of the work that goes into the AMAZING costumes and sets and over the top everything, but I got worried after I realized that the songs would be in Italian with French over-titles. Two hours and forty five minutes of gargley elegiac poetry sung in two languages I don’t speak….yay. Actually though, I wasn’t bored at all! I could follow the show enough to know when they were singing about how beautiful the moon/some flowers/someone’s eyes were, and I read that the show was a bit like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I could sort of tell what was going on. I found it was better to just watch the show though. It was really beautiful, but weirdly they decided to set the show entirely at night…so it was really dark the whole time? Like only 20% light. Very unusual.

Yesterday before class I went to the Louvre and did most of the Richelieu wing, which is apparently the least popular part of the museum. It was totally empty, I was lucky. I spent a long time, though, looking for the Vermeers, but I think that part of the museum was sealed off by a metal garage door looking thing? It was disappointing, but I did see some great works, and then went back today for the Egyptian wing and Italian paintings. It’s hard not to get frustrated by the crowds in the Louvre (today it was mostly school groups), but what I really don’t understand is how oblivious people are—SO many people just ran straight into me! And they were just taking photos of random paintings; it wasn’t like they were transfixed by anything.

More exciting, though, have been my adventures in eating: last night I had fondue at this really funny place! The place was so teeny, I had to walk over the table to my chair! It was a very French menu, with kir, crudités, wine (served…unusually), and then a GIANT VAT OF MELTED CHEESE! It was great!

Today I had a great falafel from the Marais, and then got tea with Rachel at an adorable tea house with AMAZING desserts. It was legit tea too—they gave us a pot with loose leaves, and we had a special strainer to catch the leaves. And, of course, there were sugar cubes (white and brown!). We split a tarte citron…

The plan for tomorrow is Musee L’Orangerie, Shakespeare and Co., and Laduree. You know how I am about plans though—we’ll see what actually happens!

Something new and exciting in yogurt:

Yes, that's a rhubarb. And after a successful foray into the pamplemousse flavored yog, I'm very excited.

Also, Speculoos (among other grocery purchases):

Speculoos is like a melted graham cracker with a slightly strange toothpaste-like consistency, and on top of LU butter cookies, it is AMAZING.

I thought the sun was supposed to make the earth warm, but today when I left my house it was sunny and 23F. Ugh.