previous | next

April 8, 2002, 0940 hrs Still not getting up as early as I would like. I feel the day is slipping away if I'm not up by 7:30 or so. But when my alarm goes off, I've just been rolling over and turning it off 'cause I cannot conceive of waking up yet. This morning I woke up and turned on my shortwave. I have it tuned to a morning talkshow and they are discussing the situation in Palestine with great vigor. (It's funny, the study of French and its syntax is affecting how I structure my English!) But it's strange, I feel like there is a veil (albeit thinner every day) over my hearing of the language. I can _almost_ understand it - probably because I know most of the words they are using and most of the constructions.. It's just too fast still. When they slow down to take a breath, I can follow it. I felt like this the last time I was here - this is what has given me the conviction that I can acheive fluency in the language. I don't know, perhaps those of you who speak French fluently can let me know - did you have this feeling before you "broke through" and found yourself to be fluent? It's the oddest feeling. The water here is great (out of the tap). I buy the bottled water occasionally for convenience of carrying it about (I dry out otherwise) but I refill the bottles from the tap frequently. It's a nice change from Californian or Washington water (shudder!). I'm going to attempt to do my laundry this am. I went to pet the dog in the courtyard last night (a very big, very healthy shepherd) and he snapped at me, knocking my plastic wine glass out of my hand and spilling it all over shirt and trousers. I was going to do laundry anyway, but now I have motivation. BTW, I noticed some great airfares from France to NYC. About 350E round-trip. 1107 Doing my laundry. Nifty Miele (mee-luh) machines down in the parking garage. 3E per wash, free drying (I don't think they want us hanging our laundry everywhere). Tried to do it last night but it was way too busy. Now, there is no one down there. Perfect timing. I just broke the little mount that holds my shower head to the wall. So now I have an errand to run this am as well. I was going to go by Tati (the local hyper-marche) to look for an iron and a frying pan, and I'll just have to add this to the list. Changed trousers to those with a 34" waist and they are definitely quite loose. Looser, I think, than when I arrived a week ago. It's very hard to tell because I have no scale but I'm hopeful that I'm still losing weight. I'm not working out at all - though I am walking many miles I think - and I'm eating food I wouldn't have considered back home (bread!) so I'm a bit nervous that I will lose all the gains I've made in the last six months. I want to find a gym but the French apparently don't use them much. The few I've seen have been hidden in back alleys and cul-de-sacs. Weightlifting is even more rare - le musculation, apparently. I've found a few salles des armes though (teaching savate, boxing, etc.) in my travels so far. So the martial arts exist, just not exercise for exercise's sake. Why is it in America that we are so obsessed with our weight and we have lots of gyms and here they don't seem to care, and have no gyms and are still slim? Tentatively, I'm putting down to their eating habits (no snacking between meals at all!) and how many miles they walk every day. The older people (+60) still seem to gain weight but that's got to be a natural process with settling down into one area and just walking less as the bones hurt more. Kimmo, my sister's husband, was a bit shocked that I was moving _back_ to Europe, having lived in the promised land. One of the things he mentioned was the freedom to go grocery shopping and bring one's groceries home via car. The French shop just about every day it seems and thus their food is quite fresh. They have these little carts that are sold in the hyper-marches and can bring quite a bit back using them (probably two or three American grocery bags). Well, I'm off to put my stuff in the dryer (yeah!) and run to the hyper-marche. I'm back.. managed to find out that the TATI had no glue, and no hangers for clothes for sale. And that the phone guy won't have any more recharge cards for my cell phone until tomorrow. Monday seems a slow day here too - most of the businesses are still shut, only a few essential ones (bakeries) open. Don't know if that is the case in the City - I'll find out shortly. Laundry seems to do a great job (or maybe its the detergent). Wine came right out of trousers and shirt. The French have two interesting obessions: one with security, the other with being "en regle". If one is "en regle", all one's papers are in order, most things are possible. If you conform, you are rewarded with access to information, possibilities, etc. My first experience with this was at the Alliance Francaise. I had kept everything they had sent me, and thanks to the work of the Alliance in Seattle I was already signed up as a student. So when it came time to pay, the fact that I was signed up twice (by two different people in the Paris office) wasn't my problem, it was theirs. I had done everything correctly, and had the paperwork to prove it. Pretty cool actually.. but I don't look forward to the inevitable time when I'm not right. The second obsession is with security. Virtually every residence (and many public buildings with doormen) have electronic locks and access code panels. You can't enter unless you know the code or have a code card. I have two such cards to get into my room. I use an access code to gain entry to the foyer of the building, then I have to use a code card with embedded microchip to access the lobby (where the concierge sits behind glass walls). The from the lobby, I have to use the same code card again to gain access to the wing of the building in which my studio is. Finally, I use a different code card to open the door of my studio. So going to the laverie (laundry room) requires that I use my code cards four times. Just for an internal trip in the building. Very secure. I cannot get into the Alliance without showing my student ID card (with photo) and I can (apparently) be stopped at any time on the street by the police and asked to show both my ID and proof that I'm not a vagrant (at least 20E in my pocket or something like that). I don't know if it is because they just evolved this way as a society or whether terrorism has forced this upon them. Nobody minds; I don't suppose I do either (though I'm terrified I'll leave my ID somewhere and become a stateless person). Bought myself a nice espresso pot and two nice china cups at TATI for about 10E. Good deal, I must say. I've decided to put off buying a frying pan (cooking seems like a lot of extra work right now) and instead will buy an iron. I've got interviews coming up and most of my shirts are pretty wrinkled from having been packed away (except my microfibre shirts but those are very warm for this weather). The oddest thing.. I don't think I look fierce or anything but I've noticed people seem to cross the street to avoid me (when I'm walking down an otherwise empty street in urban Paris). I wonder whether the French typically do this when they see someone they don't know on a deserted street or whether it is my flight jacket. I suspect that maybe those fools who are in the French extreme right wing may wear jackets like mine and so it has a negative connotation. I must ask my new French friends to explain this behavior.

previous | next