J'Adore

This is the weirdest thing. I've been knocking myself out using French keyboards for the past week and now I'm in an internet cafe that actually has an American keyboard and I've forgotten how to type on it. FRANCE HAS RUINED ME.

In other news, every time I turn a corner I fall more hopelessly in love with Paris. I can't believe how much I love this place. I also can't believe that I've really forgotten how to type on an American keyboard. This is seriously so weird.

J'adore my neighborhood. It's a mix of wide boulevards and quaint, winding streets, ivy scaling the walls and flowers in every window. There are trees everywhere, everywhere. The streets are filled with people-- old men and children, students and beggars and businessmen, people with skin of every possible shade, wearing every imaginable style of dress. Today I wandered into an Asian grocery store and when I walked out the back door, I found myself in the middle of an open-air market that seemed to stretch for miles, the air thick with the smell of fish and the sound of voices shouting in French and a thousand other languages.

The best part about my neighborhood is that no matter how long I walk, no matter how many twists and turns I make, no matter how many alleys I slip down, when I'm tired of walking and ready to be home, I look up and there I am, like some kind of homing pigeon.

I've been studying French like a crazy person. Actually, I'm not sure how much a crazy person would study French so maybe that's not a good analogy but I've been studying a lot. There's a shop next door to my apartment that sells primers for little French kids and I bought one that's designed for seven-year-olds. It's perfect. I struggle with some of the examples because a seven-year-old French kid would actually have a better vocabulary than I do (they would know the word for rabbit, for example) but I'm learning.

I haven't been carrying my camera with me lately so I don't have any photos for you but if you just picture the most beautiful city you can imagine, that's what you would see.

Ma vie à Paris

Although I haven't had time to write in here, rest assured that my paper journal is bursting. This is a funny word to use but my life here feels sort of nourishing. I imagine that the sort of person who would use that word should be wearing flowy skirts and lighting incense all over the place but there you go. I love the feeling that every day I know so much more than I knew the day before and I've already sunk into my routine like a cozy armchair.

I wake up in the morning around six-thirty when the sunshine knocking at my french doors won't let me sleep any longer. I heat a cup of coffee on the stove and drink it in a bright orange mug with creme fraiche. For breakfast, I eat yogurt and sometimes a banana or a fried egg.



I leave my apartment at the same time as my neighbor across the hall and we say 'bonjour' and ride the elevator together and sometimes she says something to me in french and I smile and then we say 'au revoir' and she walks up rue de Tolbiac and I turn onto rue Verginaud.

I take the train to school; sometimes I read but most days we're packed in like french sardines and I'm lucky to get a seat at all. When I get to school, I eat a package of madelines and a cafe au lait from the vending machine (so much for my healthy petit déjeuner) and then start my day with four hours of french lessons and then eat a sandwich in the park or on the square by the Corentin Celton metro station.

I finish my day with a three-hour french workshop and then I take the train back to the 13th arrondissement, stopping at every super-marchè on the way to pick up the items I've added to my list throughout the day. Once I'm back in my apartment, I make dinner (it's been gnocchi with eggplant-tomato sauce most nights). I usually eat alone but one night I shared dinner with my housemate who is an American man in his sixties who works in Washington and is studying French at the Sorbonne.

After dinner, I read until about ten-thirty when the sun goes down and I can't see the pages anymore. Then I sleep for eight hours and wake up the next morning and do the whole thing again.

I really like my school although I find french pronounciation très difficile. I don't like saying words that require you to clear your throat for periods greater than forty seconds. I'm actually able to pronounce the words better than most of my classmates (thank you, theatre training!) but so far I can only do it when I'm being silly and pretending to be Gerard Depardieu. I'm working on it.

After just a week, I've found that I can read the advertisements in the subway and, walking through the city, I'm beginning to understand snatches of conversations around me. It's like looking at the world through a fogged-up window and watching as the glass slowly clears.

I miss Madison terribly. I miss my home and my friends and my coworkers but almost more than anything I miss the city itself. I miss the trees on East Johnson, I miss the way the sidewalk on Ingersoll felt under my feet, I miss how small the world felt with my face bundled in a scarf and my boots sinking one by one into the snow.

I miss when the world felt small.

I love this city to an incredible degree. I live within a few blocks of an organic co-op, an internet cafè, a vegetarian restaurant, a grocery store that sells the world's most delicious brownies, and Europe's largest Chinatown. My apartment is flooded all day with sunlight. I have wood floors and a kitchen and even my subway stop is pretty. It's called Glacière which I think is a beautiful name (although I think it means refrigerator) and it's above ground so you're standing among trees and sunlight while you wait for the train. A man outside sells crepes in the afternoon.



Anyway, life here is lovely for the most part. I hope yours is lovely, too.

The Wrong Key

So you have this set of keys. And you have a lock that needs opening. So you try every key to see if it's the right key but none of the keys fit and you're wondering if the right key is even on this ring when, suddenly, one slides right in. Voila!

So you try to turn the key.

And it won't turn.

C'est impossible! The key fits! This must be the right key! But it won't turn. And you can't figure out why so you keep trying to make it turn but it won't, it won't, it won't.

Here's a clue for life: no matter how perfectly the key fits, if the key won't turn, it isn't the right key.

So I've spent the past few days trying to turn a key. I've sweated buckets, I've worn my fingers raw, I've thrown out my shoulder trying to turn this key and I realized last night that no matter how well the key fits, if it won't turn then maybe it's the wrong key.

It started when I took a practice LSAT online because I was bored and I did suprisingly well. I did really, really well. I was feeling a little disillusioned with my job so I filled out some applications and, bingo, I was accepted to a prestigious school in a wonderful city where many of my friends are living. I visited and everything about living there felt right to me. Going back to school felt right. Living in New York felt right. I even found a roommate that I was excited about living with. Everyone I knew rallied around this decision-- what a prestigious school! How fun to live in New York! Best of all, I'm told that lawyers spend their time reading and writing and researching, three things I enjoy doing.

The key fit.

As most of you know, the debt associated with law school (and my law school in particular) is immense. After just my first semester, I'll have a bright red -$40,000 attached to my name and at the culmination of my degree I'll be in the hole somewhere around $150,000. If I'm lucky.

Everyone says not to worry. With a degree from such a good school, I'll have my pick of firms and most of them pay $150,000 a year as a starting salary. For those of you who know me even a little bit, I'd like for you to engage in a quick visualization exercise if you wouldn't mind. I'd like for you to try to picture me in a business suit with a briefcase and pumps, working at a big corporate law firm. Ready? Go.

...

Could you do it?

Because I can't.

My law school currently offers a generous loan repayment program (the program could be pulled or changed at a moment's notice but probably won't be) under which if you work as a lawyer for a non-profit organization for five full years at a qualifying salary, they will pay back your loans for you. It's a great program but it could be changed or pulled at any time and, further, it means working full-time as a lawyer until I'm at least 33-years-old and I know this makes me sound like a dope but I'd probably like to be a stay-at-home mom by then.

I can picture myself as a law student but I can't picture myself as a lawyer. And I realized that I'm not sure I want to.

The thought of not going to law school next year is terrifying to me. What would everyone think? What would I do instead? Would I regret my decision once it's too late? But mostly it just makes me sad because I've been looking forward to going back to school and moving to New York. It sounds like so much fun and I'd be lying if I said the prestige has nothing to do with it. There are people in my life who I think respect me now in a way that they haven't for a long time and that's a hard thing to toss aside.

But the key still won't turn.

All of Europe is Obsessed With This Product

I don't care how hungry I get, I am never going to be hungry enough for roasted chicken flavored potato chips.

A Room with a View

My hotel's a bit dodgy but the view from my room is magical. I didn't know how to describe it to you in words so I just took a picture.

Paris, pt. deux

I feel like I'm in Beauty & the Beast. Walking down the street, I'm treated to a chorus of men calling out to me from the doors of their shops: Bonjour! Bonjour, Mademoiselle! I've had the opportunity to practice saying 'Bonjour' at least 1800 times.

Everyone warned me about Istanbul but no one warned me about Paris. Walking down the street at 8:30 on a Sunday morning, no less than four different men hit on me in a stretch of less than two city blocks. One actually stopped his vehicle on the side of the road to ask me to have coffee with him. No joke.

My trip to Paris was not without incident, unfortunately. The journey involved three currencies, five forms of transportation, and six cities and there were several minor and major incidents that very nearly prevented my arrival. But I did make it and that's the important thing.

My hotel's a bit of a dump but Paris is just lovely. Nearly everyone I've met has been friendly and helpful. In every other country I've visited, it's been like pulling teeth to get me to say so much as 'hello' in the local language. I always try but then I get tongue-tied and shy and revert back to English. Here, I find it surprisingly easy to converse in French. I mean, my side of the conversation is composed entirely of oui, bonjour, merci, au revoir, s'il vous plaît, and Où sont les toilettes? but I find myself saying those things with a surprising amount of confidence.

I stumbled upon a farmer's market this morning and wanted to buy everything. Unfortunately, I don't have a kitchen yet and I also don't know the French names for numbers or produce. I think I actually do know how to say 'I would like three eggplants' but the truth is that I would not like three eggplants so that seemed like a silly thing to say.

I love Paris for several reasons, most of which are inscrutable to me, but here are four of the most persuasive:

• Paris is absolutely beautiful.
• I speak French so much better than I speak Dutch, German, Czech, Polish, or Hungarian.
• I am a Paris Metro superstar.
• I found 10 € on the sidewalk today!

I also found an apartment. Well, to be more specific, Lauren found the apartment for me (on Craigslist). I went to see it this afternoon and it's amazing. It's sunny and beautiful and in a great, non-touristy neighborhood and it's cheaper than student housing or a homestay through my school. I move in on Tuesday.

School starts tomorrow and I am tres excited. Did I mention that I'm going to be in class almost thirty hours a week??

Paris

Excerpt from an email from Malka:

... I know that's not why you're REALLY going to Paris. Yeah I figured it out.

You're on the run from an international conspiracy of evil meat company executives. They've gotten wind of your upcoming "Worldwide Guide to Fake Meats and Where to Find Them" and they know it will take the world by storm and ruin their profits forever and force them to abandon their lives of decadent luxury.

So now they've sent their minions and ruthless assassins after you, with instructions to stop you at any cost. To hide your tracks you've been changing itineraries every 10 seconds, buying lots of extra tickets and enrolling in schools which are actually full just to throw them off the scent. Like right now, there's a whole pack of minions and ruthless assassins wandering around the Budapest train station wondering where you went.

It helps that you've become a master of disguise with your brand new tan but I think you should also wear a new wig in every country, and possibly sometimes a fake mustache. Also, they are probably following the smell of delicious tofurkey, but I learned from movies that if you wade through a stream they'll lose the trail.

So great news for the ruthless minions: it looks like I'm using my ticket to Paris after all. I just called the school and an extremely nice person in the school's office informed me that there is in fact a space for me in the class on Monday but they don't have any available housing on such short notice so I'll have to find my own place to stay for a few nights and then they'll assign me to a host family.

Following a search that was both exhaustive and exhausting, I have come to the conclusion that there is not a single available bed tomorrow night for under $90 in all of Paris. No good.

What I'd really like is to find a flat for the month so that I don't have to live with a host family (that seems so invasive and weird to me although it would probably be good for my non-existent French). I'll keep looking and if anyone has any suggestions for websites to search, let me know. I've already tried craigslist and google searches for "cheap vacation rentals Paris" and that sort of thing.

So here's my itinerary tomorrow: I'm taking a train to Breclav (evil, evil Breclav) at about seven in the morning and then sitting around the Breclav train station (evil, evil Breclav train station) for approximately a billion hours and then I'm taking another train to Bratislava where I have approximately three seconds to change my Czech crowns into Slovakian money, grab a taxi or a bus, and check in for my flight to Paris. My flight gets in to Paris at about 20.00 and then I have to figure out how to get to my (non-existent) hotel.

Wish me luck.

I spent yesterday hanging out with a girl from the UP (go team Midwest!) and a woman from Madrid. I spent probably five or six hours with the girl from the UP (that's the upper peninsula of Michigan for those out of the loop) and it wasn't until after she left Olomouc this morning that I realized that I never got her name.


(from the kitchen window of my hostel)

You should be impressed with me, by the way. I accomplished the nearly impossible today: I shipped a package from a foreign post office. If you've never attempted such a feat, I recommend against it. It's not that the post office is poorly run, it's just that nothing is in English. Anyway, I spent $23 to send home a thoroughly useless package of things that I'll never need again. I hate throwing good money after bad but I'm usually pretty good at throwing the bad money the first time around.

Speaking of throwing money, I'm heading back to Western Europe tomorrow. How about that?