Embarcation

I'm working on my BU application at Centre Pompidou, one of the few places in Paris where there's coffee and free wifi in one place, but I'm feeling pretty antsy. Because tomorrow, I'm going to get up painfully early, take the RER to CDG, and meet one of my oldest friends from Seattle. On Saturday, we are leaving Paris for an adventure across Europe, that's going to go something like this: Paris --> Amsterdam --> Berlin --> Prague --> Salzburg --> Paris. We're backpacking across Europe. But we both have train passes, so we can change our plans at any moment. I'm really looking forward to this. I picked up my interrail pass (like the Eurail, but for residents of the EU, and I am one of those!) today at the Montparnasse train station, and we're slowly making hostel reservations, reading up on the cities we're going to, and trying to connect with anyone who will let us stay with them while we're traveling. I've already been to Amsterdam, so that will be familiar -- part of the plan, so we don't get lost and confused immediately -- but I'm so excited to be in the cities I've never visited, unable to speak the local language, and having some adventures. It's just a lovely feeling and really exciting. I love traveling. Well, obviously. And when you live in Paris, it's a mix of awesome and terrible, but the feeling of newness that you get from being a tourist dissipates after a while. Reality sets in. I still love Paris, but I love ordinary things about it. I'm less enchanted by the things that caught my attention the first time I came here. I love getting a cheap coffee and pastry at the bar at my favorite boulangerie after work, and reading some James Joyce for a good hour. I love my friends. I love knowing exactly where to go on the metro. I love knowing I can go to Centre Pompidou to look at art whenever I want, and then not going very often. I love the rare sunny days when I can wear my obnoxiously American knockoff Ray-Bans, and I love getting to know the city beyond what originally drew me to it. On some level, I even love knowing that there are things about Paris that I actually really dislike. That's what makes it feel like home, I suppose.

But that said, I'm looking forward to going somewhere new, with one of my oldest friends, and not-too-well-laid plans and an open-ended train pass, and a backpack, and some books, and my camera.

Sometimes I still wonder what I'm doing here. I have those moments of utter confusion and uncertainty. Sometimes I really miss being at Smith, where the feeling of being productive and using time well came from getting the reading done or finishing papers. But that's a cheap way of assessing success. It's a limited way of measuring what it means to be a good person, which, ultimately, isn't something that needs to be measured, it isn't possible to measure. So I think what I'm doing here is pretty simple, when it all comes down to it. I'm just living my life, however scary and strange that may feel. But I think that's why we have things like friends and James Joyce and 1 euro espressos and sunny days in Paris and petite tartes au sucre and knockoff Ray-Bans and public libraries and mix CDs sent across the Atlantic by close friends that are far away and Interrail passes and soft American Apparel v-neck t-shirts and postcards of Sonia Delauney paintings and crepes with Nutella and banana and black beans and Wes Anderson movies and Bikram's yoga and and Skype and bookstores and window-shopping and adventures across Europe with old friends and, very occasionally, interactions with strangers that leave us feeling better rather than worse about the world.

Calls to mind something from one of my favorite movies, Stranger Than Fiction:

As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be ok. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true. And, so it was, a wristwatch saved Harold Crick.

When all of this freedom gets daunting, these are the things I like to remember. In the meantime, away we go to Amsterdam.

Nocturnal Wanderings, Frivolity, Museums, Chanel/Stravinsky, and a 5 Euro Formula for Happiness

This weekend went by in what felt like a matter of seconds. I had some adventures with several different people. These things happened:
-two museums in two days: Pompidou on Saturday, Rodin on Sunday, both for free with my visa -- Pompidou's permanent collection is a floor of awesome. They have Diane Arbus, Lisette Model, this painter I really like, Sonia Delauney, this insane surrealist photographer whose name escapes me, Matisse's paper cutouts, Karel Appels and people like him, and Chagall and Dada and other stuff I can't think of right now. Amazing. I love Centre Pompidou so much. Rodin is good too, but especially the garden and The Thinker
-nutella/banana crepes, shawerma, beer, chocolat chaud, and late-night quesadillas in my kitchen
-a movie, "Coco Chanel et Igor Stravinsky," with my French fairy godmother, this wonderful lady professor I'm friends with who will take me out for coffee or to see a dumb movie and remind me that it's okay to be confused when you're 22. The movie was kind of dumb, but with "The Rite of Spring," playing constantly. I love Rite of Spring. Also, the actress who played Coco Chanel made me want to become a fashion designer just so that I can dangle a cigarette in one hand and pins in the other while I adjust something on a dress someone's wearing. That I designed. There was also a subplot involving the inception of Chanel no. 5. Frivolous, pretty, fun.
-Rue Mouffetard/The Latin Quarter, the Marais, Saint Michel on both days
-party in my apartment on Saturday night after wandering the city until after midnight. I played cards with my roommate's friends until I couldn't keep my eyes open. Not as riveting as the Risk night, but it's a nice feeling to come back to your apartment to find a party is going on.
-things I did not do: laundry, grocery shopping, enough running, sitting alone in a cafe writing
-wandering from the Marais to the Latin Quarter to Montparnasse and back again
-so much good conversation with wonderful people
-starting my day with a latte, Pema Chodron, and the New York Times

I'm beginning to think that all you really need in Paris is somewhere to walk, ~5 euro for coffee or beer, and someone to talk to while you wander or sit down to said beverages. It is easily my favorite thing about this city.

Back to work and reality tomorrow. Things are certainly still hard. I still have no idea what I'm doing when my contract ends in April. Uncertainty and confusion are daily companions.

But this felt like my first real weekend in Paris.

Attrapper-ing un rhume with the unaccompanied majors

And the time has come for Hostel #3. I was staying at a really nice, kind of pricy hostel in the 14th, but they ran out of space after two nights, so here I am at Aloha Hostel in the 15th, which reminds me of the unaccompanied minors room I once spent a few hours in before my connecting flight to Paris when I was eleven. It was a chaotic little room in an airport where a bunch of unaccompanied minors ran around wearing stickers declaring their unaccompanied minor status and watched movies until they were allowed to go to their gates. It was a little chaotic. Here everyone is my age, but because Paris is having a torrential downpour day, everyone is inside watching Lord of the Rings or checking email. This, compounded by the fact that Aloha's color scheme is neon and they also have a beer vending machine, makes it like a grown up room of unaccompanied minors. Only, instead of catching a flight, I'm waiting to get an apartment.

And I found the perfect studio in the 13th yesterday, so I have my fingers crossed that it will come through. It's in a nice old-ish building, not Haussman, but still pretty, with a courtyard/parking lot and views of other buildings around the courtyard. The studio is on the fifth floor, and it's being rented by a man who honest to god looks just like a gnome and kept on extolling the virtues of the building's lift, which is so small it could probably be an effective torture device on the claustrophobic. It fits three people leaning between two uncomfortably close walls and you can't turn around in it. And the gnome man kept telling me that the building is great because you don't have to take the stairs.

Um. If I get the apartment, I will only take the stairs. But I appreciated the sentiment.

Anyway, the studio itself is a good size, with a bedroom with a huge window and furniture (!) and an equipped kitchen and even a nice bathroom. It's the same price as the studio I saw in the 10th, and I wouldn't have to buy any furniture for it. This is a plus.

The area it's in is the 13th, which isn't as swank as a lot of other areas of Paris - it's a bit more working class, but all in all I don't think it would be a bad place to live. And the building is just off the Metro and it was really lively when I was there and felt really safe.

The other people visiting the apartment were mostly students, and the gnome said he wanted to rent it to someone who doesn't have to get their parents' permission first to rent it. He also seemed reassured that I have a job and a contract for a specific amount of time. He said that I am one of three people he's considering for the apartment, and I am really hoping it works out. When I told him I was American, he told me that I don't have an American accent, and that my accent sounds more Italian. I took it as a compliment.

This was after I looked at an room in the suburbs that is being rented by yet another middle-aged Frenchman. He kept talking about how the suburb was rich and white and conservative - all of which he presented as major pluses - and he was really nice but seemed a little bit racist. And after seeing the apartment and the surrounding area (it's like Bellevue in Washington State - comment dit-on "no way in hell"?) I know that I want to live in Paris no matter what. It might mean staying in youth hostels a bit longer or subletting or living in a less fancy district, but there is no way I am succumbing to the suburbs. I hate them at home, and I hate them here too. I'll take Paris any day, with all its grime and noise and air pollution. I mean, I kind of like those things.

Nuit Blanche was also a success. I went with some other assistants, and got crepes and watched a video installation outside of Centre Pompidou, which had free admission on Nuit Blanche, so we got to go in and see an exhibition of work by women artists, including Rachel Whitereade, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Nan Goldin...basically everyone who was included in the feminist art unit of my art history class last spring. It was really cool to see the pieces in real life, though, just because when I see art in class I never think that I'll actually get a chance to see it in real life. It was a really good night. There was also a giant disco ball hovering over the Luxembourg Gardens.

Oh, and I managed to get a cold the next morning, so now I'm sniffling around Paris, discovering the joys of French cold medicine and tea. Last night I had dinner with some family friends, and they sent me home with both. It was great to see them, and to have all of my dumb Paris questions answered, although by the end of the night my French had seriously deteriorated. I've been spending a lot of time with the other assistants, and the program has some oversight, and the directors are doing their best to get us acclimated, but sometimes it just helps to talk to a French person who isn't paid to tell you that the children will love you because you're American.

Things are still a bit disorganized - I was supposed to meet the contact person for my school(s?) today, and I'm not scheduled to meet with him until Monday. But given that this is France, I am just glad there's a meeting at all.

I hope it stops raining soon. But this hostel is playing Nico and the Clash in the lobby, so it's an okay place to be stuck with a cold for now.