Je voudrais un Paris, s'il vous plait?

Week Five/Six: Paris, France

September 30^th – October 10^th, 2011

‎"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." ~Desmond Tutu

Several conversations/events have led to my recent discovery of this quote: Monsieur Tutu’s 80^th birthday was on the 7^th, discussions of international social injustice in Africa due to exploitation and colonialization for our Cityscapes class, narrowing of my Political Science Departmental Honors research thesis, and continuing the conversation from our Rectifying International Injustice tutorials. I won’t bore you with the details, but now you have a sense of what is prevailing in my mind as I explore Paris for the first time.

The Notre Dame at sunset

The train pulled into Paris like a rocket to the moon, the station’s like a circus, every face is a cartoon. ~Faith Hill

Our arrival was quite a whirlwind, lugging heavy suitcases through the different platforms and trying to fit them in the tiny barracks of the train coaches. The walk from our exit in Paris to the apartment was not among the most pleasant, so my first executive decision was to sleep haha. I woke up to everyone having left to explore already, so I took my own walk around the city to gain my bearings. The four apartments that the Lutheran Society is occupying spans two islands and the northern side of the river, so my walk around the block took quite a while discovering where everyone was staying for the next ten days. Communication was at its minimum with faulty cell phones and only two apartment keys in such a big city, so I ended up having dinner on my own at a Lebanese restaurant that I had stumbled upon just to the north of the Centre Pompidou. Traiteur Beyrouth was absolutely delicious, and my mouth watered at the smell of the familiar spices from the Ottoman territories of Israel, Palestine, and Turkey. I could not decide what to order because it was all looked so delicious, so I made friends with the restaurant waiters. One of them recognized my earrings because she had just visited Turkey as well, and the guys were hilarious because I speak no French, and they speak very little English haha. Eventually I ordered a kefta “sandwich” with orange juice and baklava, and they put all of the wonderful dressings that I love but have no recollection of what they are. When I finished, they brought me some complimentary mint tea to round off the meal.

The living room of our apartment

The next day we experienced the French supermarkets to buy some essentials: water, bread, gnocchi, and marinara haha. Trying to figure out which water to buy was certainly a challenge with some bottles 1/3 the price of others. And of course, the gnocchi was just a default lunch when I got sick of spending money on 1000kcal nutella and banana crepes, or really just got sick of eating nutella. That afternoon Dr. Brint and I took a walk around the Marais and into the Jewish Quarter while discussing my research interests. Our conversation focused on three different concepts of my overall topic derived from life experiences and observations. I am afraid to publish those ideas on a public blog prematurely, but I would love to speak with anyone individually and in person who are interested. Later that evening, everyone to my surprise wanted me to take them to the Lebanese restaurant! Absolutely, I would eat this for every meal if I could. They sat all 12 of us upstairs, and we ordered a huge variety of 14 different entrées, several other individual meals of falafel, kefta, and shawarma, and 6 different desserts. Everyone loved it! Huge success – I am so excited to be with people who share my passion for Middle Eastern tastes. We all went back to our apartment’s penthouse terrace overlooking the city of Paris for some wine, tea, and coffee.

October 1^st was Noit Blanche, or White Night/Sleepless Night, which I thought might have been similar to Tel Aviv’s White Night back in July. However, it was much different: rather than bringing all the artists to the streets, Paris imported exceptional artists from around the world to stage exhibits in buildings and museums around the city. Rather than being able to just walk around and experience everything in one stroll, Paris had strewn the exhibits in several different zones that dispersed spectators and ended fairly early in the morning. Tel Aviv was literally an all-night expo that brought the city together. This presents interesting dynamic differences between the two cities: high-end fashion and aristocratic art vs. magnifying the people’s art. Paris may have been more intellectually stimulating, but Tel Aviv’s was more engaging and widespread. Anyways, the main exhibit of Noit Blanche that we experienced (after waiting in line and then mobbing through the door) was Purple Rain. I haven’t taken the time yet to analyze the art, but that’s ok. The experience was exciting enough.

The next day we took a Fat Tire Bike Tour that began at the Eiffel Tower and lasted about 2.5 hours. What a great prospective job for post-grad if I wanted to spend my time in graduate school abroad! They have satellites in London, Berlin, and Barcelona as well. Our tour guide was great: this is her third year in Paris after graduating from university on the East Coast. We rode California Beach Cruisers (which I swore I would never do just a few months ago), which are eons different than road bikes or mountain bikes. I don’t know when the last time I rode a bike with a kick-stand was haha and it drove me crazy to not have my feet clipped in. I felt like a klutz. We did catch some great views of the city, though, and we even stumbled across a ramp named after Ben Gurion, founder and former-Prime Minister of Israel.

One of the beauties of Study Abroad is hosting class in unconventional locations – the Louvre, the gardens of Versailles, the Musée D’Orsay, and Centre Pompidou for our Politics and the Arts tutorials. At the Louvre, we split into groups to analyze paintings in each the Rococo, Neo-Classicism, and Romantic styles from France in the 17^th-19^th centuries. Then at the Musée D’Orsay we did the same for Naturalism/Realism and Impressionism paintings. That was my favorite museum with work from Van Gogh and Monet. Unfortunately the section with that originally contains my favorite pieces was under construction :( I guess I’ll just have to come back next year! At the Centre Pompidou we studied Modernism, Cubism, and Post-Modernism art. I’m curious to see how the global society will shape the next genre of artwork. The paintbrush and canvas has been one of the most constant modes of creative expression, but its application has changed dramatically. Our picnic at Versailles was a bit different than the other classes – we studied the political and artistic contributions of King Louis XIV while tasting wine and cheese from five different regions in France. Oh I forgot to mention one little detail…I kinda got stuck in the train doors trying to get to Versailles :) luckily my friends were paying attention and helped pry the doors back open.

Paparazzi for the Mona Lisa at the Louvre

Me, Mira, Beth, and Nikki in front of the infamous triangular prism at the Louvre

Picnic in the gardens of Versailles

On my mission to buy artwork around the world, I found a lovely painting of the Eiffel Tower at night. Unfortunately, I doubt whether or not the guy I bought the painting from was the original artist. We have a theory that students sell their artwork to street vendors, who in turn sell them to the tourists. Oh well. It is still original, and quite beautiful. I also purchased some water color cityscapes from a student we saw painting them from our café. The pictures are below:

Unfortunately blogspot is not allowing me to rotate my pictures :(

One of the students in the Lutheran Society is celiac, so I experimented a bit with gluten-free baking in our Paris apartment. I tried my best to find all the ingredients I normally use, but could not find any baking soda. A Naturalia market around the corner sold all kinds of gluten-free and organic products, so I did most of my shopping there. While everyone came in and out of our apartment for their tutorials on our apartment, I attempted to make some cookies without a recipe. I figured as long as the dough tastes good, the cookies will taste good. Plus, if I coat the dough in cocoa powder, anything will taste good. Once the dough was kneaded to my liking, I discovered our apartment does NOT have an oven!!! Well, I guess the “convection” setting of our microwave will do! In fact it did, and these cookies turned out better than the ones I tried to bake in a real oven at the boys’ apartment later that evening.

A few of the girls and I decided to explore a pre-constructed Street Art Walk that we downloaded from another blogspot account. It began in the far northeastern area of Paris and spanned the length of four metro stops. We only lasted about two of them haha. Of course, street art is the kind term for graffiti, which is illegal. The area of town we were in was extremely…cultured. In one direction was a group of young kids from a Jewish elementary school, and in the other direction were some adults dressed in the traditional Muslim-African garb with the brilliant colors and cloaks. Check out the “Artwork Around the World” album on my Facebook to experience the graffiti for yourselves once I get a chance to upload the photos. I did not take pictures of the people because it was bad enough we were wandering around taking pictures of their neighborhood. Note to self: print off the PDF with the directions and street art notes, because it is not smart to try to read off of an $800 iPad2 and attempt to walk at the same time in an unknown neighborhood. It was certainly an experience of a lifetime, and I do not regret it one bit. This is an area of France I would have never found had we not been on this mission. We could really see the clash of the classes and the effects of colonialism on native cultures in the colonizing country. One particular piece of fresh graffiti is shown below: “Alger, Tunis, Londres…Paris?”

Later on the same day as the Street Art Walk, I ventured back into the Marais Jewish Quarter that Dr. Brint had led me through earlier in the week. I stood in line for 45 minutes at a Yiddish Boulangerie to get some fresh Challah and pastrami. I was disappointed to claim the last two loaves of Challah, but to my pleasant surprise the bread was still warm. This week being bookended by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish Quarter was very energetic and lively. I miss Israel! I wandered around for about another hour looking at the fantastic artwork and smelling the falafel as I picked at my Challah.

King Falafel Palace :)

One of the staples of the Parisian tourist experience is a hike up the Eiffel Tower, which ended up lasting over 2.5 hours between the 1300 stairs up and down and staying past sunset to watch the tower dazzle in LED lights at the top of the hour. We definitely earned our gelato and crepes that night haha.

I know that this blog is being posted before our stay in Paris is complete, but I do not want to have to worry about remembering everything when we move on to Italy on Monday. France has pleasantly surprised me. The people reflect a version of southern hospitality that is very kind and friendly, as long as you do not behave like an American tourist. They love sharing their culture with us, but we must be exceptionally and outwardly attempting to embrace it at the same time for them to acknowledge us. Look at everyone in the eye (very different from the Middle East) and always be overly polite. This is a lesson that is often lacking in large cities that tend to hunker down and alienate outsiders. The sense of community and pride is very high, and is very much a product of the French Revolution. I would enjoy the opportunity to spend more time here analyzing the political culture and study more about the relationship between the people and the government. Many people critique travel seminars like this that spend only a short amount of time in a variety of locations, but this type of traveling is perfect for students. It opens the doors to new cultures by giving us an abundance of opportunities for extended study. Being here in person provides for a better perspective while studying back home, and the introduction to the cultures makes coming back for extended periods of time less frightening.