Texas Independence Day

Thursday the 22nd was the last day of classes at ESCP and thus the perfect time to celebrate a slightly belated Texas Independence day. Although April 21st is the real anniversary for the Battle of San Jacinto, in which the Texans charged the divided Mexican forces outside of present-day Houston to win their freedom, half of our potential guests had a test on Thursday so they couldn't have been able to attend the night before.

My old church friend Elizabeth Medlin - who came and visited Rue Quincampoix for St. Patrick's Day - sent us Texas postcards to decorate the apartment with. It wasn't much but at least we had some form of Texas flag on the front door. Then, between myself, Cameron, and our helpers Katie and Lauren, we cooked an absolute feast to remind ourselves our Texas and help share a little bit of home with our foreign guests. The menu focused on chicken fajitas, and we had the four burners of our stove going strong for a good six or seven hours to get everything ready. For fajitas we had rotisserie chicken and sauteed onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, bacon, and beans. The snack table included fresh guacamole, pico de gallo, and black bean / corn dip. We had a strong Norwegian contingent, a good-sized Australian party, some Canadians, and then some French, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Swiss guests as well. I told everyone that they were only allowed to bring tequila, whiskey, or beer - because the Texans sure weren't drinking champagne behind the walls of the Alamo - and the majority of people listened. One of the French guests brought a bottle of wine, though; it wasn't until later that we found out it was a 150 euro bottle of wine from his parents' vineyard! It was a lot of fun and made me miss Texas all the more, but I have a little bit more of Europe to enjoy at this point and had Prague to look forward to the next morning.

Parisian Weekend

This weekend I spent, literally, 95% of my waking daylights hours out in a cafe with my book. On Thursday I went down to the Rive Gauche, directly south of Notre Dame and Ile de la Cite, to find the old English bookstore Shakespeare & Company. It was founded in the 20s and, so I learned, became a haven for young no-namers like James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and a slew of other French, British, and American poets and authors of the time.

I went in there looking for some reading about the Catholic Church and/or Papal states in preparation for my trip to Rome, but ended up getting a book about the Nazi occupation of France from 1940-1944. The book's called "Americans in Paris" and chronicles the exploits of the relatively large American population that stayed behind in Paris when everyone else fled the city to escape the encroaching Nazi forces. The majority of these Americans then became an integral part (and often leaders) of the French resistance. What initially drew me to the book is that the summary on the back of the book, which described a few of the main characters in the American/French resistance movement: "...and Silvia Beach, owner of the famous bookshop, Shakespeare and Company." I knew that Shakespeare & Co. had a lot of history behind it - including being the first publisher of Joyce's 'Ulysses' when America found it too obscene to publish - but had no idea the role it played during the Nazi occupation. I, therefore, was obliged to purchase and read the book. Thus, the majority of my weekend has been spent in cafes outside the Pompidou Centre (and a short and cold period in the Tuileries gardens) reading with a 4.50 euro cafe au lait at my side.

Friday afternoon I spent next to the statue fountains adjacent to the Pompidou Centre at the Jardin de The (tea garden) Cafe. Saturday I moved to the Chavelier Bleu (blue knight) about a block closer to home for a cafe au lait twice as big and cheaper by 20 cents. Saturday's highlight was also getting my first cheeseburger in four months; a big surprise considering it came from a legit Parisian cafe. The Paris Beaubourg cafe next to the Pompidou served it up real similar to the 'wild style' of In And Out Burger. I'll pay 15 euros for a burger that good anyday. And, today (Sunday) to wrap up my Parisian cafe weekend, I headed down to the Tuileries gardens with a sack lunch and my book, but after 45 minutes in the cold wind without the sun making a reappearance, I changed venues for the comfort and heaters of the Chevalier Bleu. I like that place, among the various other Pompidou cafes, because the plaza in front of the Pompidou is one of the largest open spaces for people to congregate, so there's always good people-watching and performances by musicians or artists going on right in front of you. I have a lot of reading to do in preparation for my trip to Berlin and Bob and I's tour of World War II sites in France, so I'll assuredly continue my cafe au lait and reading binge over the weeks to come.

Barcelona-esque Reunion

[HOPEFULLY TO GET SOME BETTER PICTURES SENT TO ME BY LAUREN BONDS; CHECK BACK!]

This weekend for Easter our friend Lauren Bonds came into Paris to escape her job at RBS in London. She was the friend we stayed with when Cameron and I went to London the second weekend we were here and also one of the people we met in Barcelona three weeks ago. So, when I met her at Chatelet Les Halles train station, that marked the third country in which I've picked her up on a random street corner. She was a little late getting in, so we got her situated in our apartment and then for dinner we settled on one of the cafes right in our neighborhood looking out onto the plaza in front of the Pompidou Center. We went super French and between the three of us got quiche, a croque monsieur, and steak tartar.

The next day we went up to Montmartre so Lauren could see the Sacre-Coeur cathedral and the artsy areas that make up the neighborhood around it. We stopped in one of the squares near the cathedral where a bunch of free-lance artists work and got a couple of rounds of coffee and a light lunch from one of the many cafes there. We also took her (in the same area) the Moulin Rouge, but we couldn't get very far into it.

We then attempted to go to the Musee d'Orsay, but when we got there the line was so unbelievably long that we bailed on the idea and decided to walk home via the Tuileries gardens and the Louvre to see if the line at the Centre Pompidou was any better. I take a book or something to the Tuileries all the time when the weather is nice, but it was both Lauren's and Cameron's first times being there, so they enjoyed it. We got back to our neighborhood and then went to the Pompidou but were thoroughly unimpressed. There was a big collection on display by some supposedly reknowned artist named Lucien Freud, whose works haven't been showcased since the 80's. It was apparently a big deal that these works were at the Pompidou and available to the public, but we were thoroughly unimpressed. His specialty was ugly and otherwise deformed nudes, so I didn't care to spend more than 10 minutes in the entire thing. The rest of the museum, minus perhaps Picasso and the rest of the cubism works, were equally as underwelming. I have trouble looking at something that could have taken me 2 hours and $16 worth of materials at Hobby Lobby and calling it museum-worthy art.

In the spirit of saving money, we had a pretty low-key evening. Cameron and I cooked a big feast, starting with some fresh baguettes, cheese tray, and some nuts and fruits. For the entree we had teriyaki chicken with a buttery and sauteed vegetable medley of mushrooms, onions, and cucumbers. For dessert, our third consecutive fresh-baked loaf of banana bread. After dinner, we just had wine and watched a movie as no one was in the mood to go out and spend a bunch of money.

Lazy Weekend

Didn't do a whole lot in Paris this weekend. Since this was the first time since getting here that I've had a weekend sans traveling, I managed to be fantastically lazy and accomplish nearly nothing. I spent the majority of the time updating the blog, getting relatively caught up with pictures on Facebook, and downloading some music. On Sunday I went to the international mass at Notre Dame, which was nice but not altogether translated into English. I guess it's just too much work to translate the sermon into four other languages, but the hymns and the Bible readings were provided in English, Spanish, German, and Italian. After church I lounged around the apartment for awhile longer - a little too chilly and cloudy to enjoy the outdoors - doing more picture uploading, music downloading, and movie watching before heading over to some friends' apartment to watch the Wisconsin/Cornell and Georgia Tech/Ohio State games.

Best Day in Paris So Far

On Friday Elizabeth took off from Paris for her Chunnel ride to London for her grad school interviews. We got breakfast next to the Centre Pompidou and then I took her to Gare de Nord to see her off. The weather was so outstanding that, after getting home, I packed a sack lunch and grabbed a book and headed to the Tuileries Gardens to do some reading. There's a bunch of public chairs clustered around the two massive pond/fountains in the gardens, so I just plopped myself down in one of those and let a couple hours tick by reading. It got a tiny bit chilly when the sun would go behind a cloud, but other than that the atmosphere was fantastic. I read until about 2:00, and then I was cold enough to merit walking around a bit.

I headed to L'Ile de La Cite and checked out Pont Neuf, the little garden area that makes up the westernmost portion of the island. I found the place in which Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burnt at the stake in 1314 after his refusal to confess to the accusations of heresy that the church had made against him. I walked around L'Ile de La Cite a little more and then headed to Notre Dame for mass and the veneration of the crown of thorns. Louis VIII, a pious crusader-king of France during the 1200s, had brought the ACTUAL crown of thorns to Paris from Rome in 1263. It's kept in the Treasury of Notre Dame, along with a piece of the true cross and one of the nails from it, but is brought out for veneration every Friday during Lent. I was lucky enough to catch one of these services this past Friday. It was brought out of the Treasury and paraded through the aisles before being placed on the alter for the duration of the service. At the end, the priests called the congregation up pew-by-pew (much like communion) to kneel before it. A truly awesome and nearly overwhelming experience.

I was so jacked up with energy after the veneration service that I got home and decided to go on my first run since the Dallas half marathon in December. I knew I would be out of shape, but so it goes. I also didn't bring any appropriate sportswear over here, so I was wearing these ganster knee-length basketball shorts of Cameron's and these partial leather tennis shoes I brought. I'm sure I looked ridiculous. I headed south from my apartment and ran along the Seine until I got to the Louvre, then cut across the bridge, over L'Ile de La Cite, and then back along the other side of the river before returning north via Rue Sebastapol past Notre Dame. It was only about 1.4 miles, but it adequately wore me out. Felt really good to be outside and active again though. My traveling binge has really cut down on the opportunities for exercise, unfortunately.

I finished my day by taking a girl out to eat at one of the restaurants I discovered when my parents were in town, Le Coupe Chou (the one with the escargot to die for). I certainly don't mind paying a lot for dinner when it's as good as this place; it's also a super cozy basement restaurant that looks more like the Gryffindor common room from Harry Potter than anything else. All in all, a great day in Paris and one reason I'm so happy that I stayed in town this weekend versus traveling for the 9th weekend in a row.

St. Patty's 2010

Wednesday was the midterm exam in our international finance class that the three of us had been dreading for the last several days. I had to send Elizabeth out on her own again so that I could use the morning and afternoon to study, but then would be ready to go out for St. Patrick's day later that night. Between St. Patty's and the finance test being over, it would be a dangerous combination of reasons to celebrate!

Cameron had invited some people over to our apartment to preparty before we out to an Irish pub, where the Guiness would be assuredly marked up to exorbitant prices that we couldn't afford. We had to get our place presentable so the four of us cleaned up whilst showering and getting ready. Katie and Melanie from Wisconsin and our Slovakian friend Mattej were the only ones that we able to make it out, though, as half of the program still had another exam the next day and wouldn't be able to celebrate St. Patty's.

Elizabeth, bless her, brought a deck of playing cards from the States (impossible to find over here, strangely) so we were able to play a few American drinking games for the first time in months. After a few hours at our apartment, we found our way to O'Sullivans Irish pub a few blocks south, in between Hotel de Ville and the Centre Pompidou, and finished our evening there.

Elizabeth in Town

This week I had a visitor from home: Elizabeth Medlin, my friend from UCC in Fort Worth who also goes to UT with me. She was coming over the pond to interview with several graduate schools in England and she'd never been to Paris before.

She got into town Monday morning and I met her at the train station Chatelet Les Halles right by my apartment, the exact same routine as I'd done with Bob and Deb a few weeks prior. Her flight was delayed, so pretty much as soon as I'd gotten her I had to run to school for class and leave her at my apartment to take a nap. I had a finance midterm this week, so I knew that I wasn't going to be the best tour guide, but after class the two of us walked around the south bank and saw some of the touristy sites that I'd been holding off on seeing (namely, the Eiffel Tower). It was only the second real time that I'd set out and explored the city I actually live in. We walked around the area around the Eiffel Tower, including the Ecole Militaire and Les Invalides (though the building itself was closed so we couldn't see Napoleon's tomb inside), and then got crepes and walked the Seine back East. We crossed over and went through La Place de la Concorde, with Paris' pilfered Egyptian obelisk, the Tuileries Gardens and then through the Louvre to end up back near my apartment. Cameron and I cooked dinner for the four of us and we had a big feast of teriyaki chicken, pasta, and a bunch of sauteed vegetables.

The next day, since I had class nearly the whole time, Elizabeth went out on her own and explored other parts of the city like Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur Cathedral. Pretty tame night as the four of us ended the night watching Aliens.