Inner-City Expeditions

I was finally persuaded to risk my life and take advantage of the city bikes. Mathieu signed us up for Velib, so we just swipe our public transportation passes at any of the bike stations all over town and have a free 30-minute ride for free. I know our ride to the Eiffel Tour the other night surpassed the free limit but I'm not sure yet what the paying rate is. It's an incredible system, especially when the route includes bike lanes:

My first excursion via Velib was a quick ride to Bastille, where I had a soothing sheesha to reward my bravery. Now I'm ready to take on scarier rides, like the uphill climb from school to home. Lately there haven't been any bikes to be found near school, so I've been walking home through Buttes Chaumont Park:

  

Classes are still amazing and I'm still obsessed with my teacher. My evenings are riddled with "my teacher said this" and "guess what she thinks about that", but Mathieu has been a champ about this woman entering into our lives. My class went out to a salsa bar the other Friday night and he got to meet all the 15+ personalities that I spend my mornings with. My Chinese classmate Naiqun and I have also been going to the pool each week - City pools are all over Paris and a 3-month membership is only 19 euros. That wouldn't buy a single yoga class! Since Naiqun told me she can't swim, I've been giving her informal lessons. 

Last week, as we were hiding out in the kiddy pool doing little exercises, an older man came up to us and gave a paternal 5-minute speech about how we could teach ourselves to swim. Then he retrieved 2 kickboards for us and bid us good luck. When I took the kickboard for a spin to demonstrate for Naiqun, he appeared again out of nowhere, full of joy for me and my successful traverse across the kiddy pool by following his instructions. His proud smile was adorable. What's more, mere minutes later a young guy doing exercises near us took us under his wing as well, even demonstrating the breathing and kicking drills to do. It was like a makeshift Good Samaritan Day. We were tickled. 

After swimming, we sometimes set out to explore parks or museums. Here's Naiqun and our Vietnamese classmate fighting in front of the comic book windows at the Palais de Tokyo:

For a new story for Girls Guide to Paris, I've done a couple more interviews, some of them spontaneously... One day I stumbled upon this chocolate shop and got swallowed up in the aromas and friendly banter with the owner for over an hour. It was good French practice, apart from moments when English- and Arabic-speaking clients entered and needed a translator. I benefited from hoards of free samples and learned about chocolate flavoring and molding. Here is a part of the creator's shrine of projects spanning the past few decades (the white pharaoh is white chocolate):

We recently got to host our friend Julien, who used to work with Mathieu in Cairo on the metro and is now living in France, coordinating again with Mathieu to build a high-speed train line. He inspired us to climb the Sacre Coeur for this lovely view: 

Last weekend Mathieu and I went to the flea market at Saint Ouen, which I believe my parents visited 20 years ago, and followed the tranquil winding pathways browsing antiques and random junk with a friend from class and her own Frenchman.

On May, On June, On July and August!

My friend Clementine recently made me realize that a whole 1/3 of a year has passed since we moved to France from Egypt. While she moved into her apartment pretty quickly and started a normal routine right away, Mathieu and I took a while to find a place and even now are still making it a home. 

The grey, rainy spring passed quickly during my 7 weeks of French classes at Alliance Francaise with some hilarious Italian, Spanish, Brazilian and British classmates…Then I spent 5 sunny joyous weeks with my family for my sister Kelsie’s wedding…And then returned to a grey, rainy summer in Paris to anticipate the arrival of the Cairo crew for some beach time in the southwest of France. Since they left me a couple weeks ago, I’ve started French classes at a new school and am now absorbed in my riveting student schedule. (I'm not being sarcastic. Yes, I'm a geek.)

All of the incredible wedding designs-come-true, invented by my sister and my brother-in-law then pulled together through a grand collaboration with them and the families, can be witnessed on the photographers’ blog. (The many hundreds of photos can be viewed here; password is the groom’s last name.) Also check out the silly photobooth.  

Back in France in July, Mathieu and I went to see the Tour de France arrive in Paris (meaning we watched colors whiz by us 8 times as they completed the Champs Elysees circuit).

Soon Lindsey and Jessica had landed and, after a couple days (hours, actually) of exposure to my neighborhood, they said they hadn't paid $600 to come to France just to feel like they were still in Egypt. Being Ramadan, my fellow foreigners had smothered the sidewalks with tables of feast goodies and turned the streets into the crowded bazaar that we all love and miss about Cairo. Unless walking through said mess means getting sexually harassed (which it did), and in that case we we were not struck with any nostalgia or warm feelings toward said region. 

Escaping to the coast, we took the train to Bordeaux where Noelle and Alex picked us up and immediately whisked us off to Cap Ferret for a sunset picnic on the beach. Alex and his family were generous hosts, opening their homes to us, lending us their boats and water skis, stuffing us with oysters, mussels, rich cheeses and home-cooked deliciousness for a blissful week. 

After the beach, Noelle entertained me in Paris for another week and helped me orient myself in my (relatively) new city. She mapped out destinations across town like vintage clothing shops, parks, beauty boutiques, and often we found ourselves wandering into unexpected places as a result - in the case of the Marais, it was charming. In the case of la Chapelle, it was a bit overwhelming. In turn, Mathieu and I took her out to a comedy show, "How to become a Parisian in one hour," and to Paris Plage, the summertime makeshift beach, along the Seine.

Now I've fallen into a steady but not-too-steady routine at my new French school. Every morning is a quick commute and two hours of general French class with a hilarious professor who never fails to entertain us (and I’m not a morning person, so that’s really saying something). She explains what is said on the street (i.e., what not to say), teaches survival skills in Paris, makes us sing along to cheesy French songs, tells risqué jokes, and makes us engage and talk about ourselves. After her class, I have a different choice each day of specialized workshops like essay writing, phonetics, cultural and historical lectures, or guided tours around Paris. Last week we saw the crown of thorns encased in Notre Dame, and the week before we explored the palace-made-prison where Marie Antoinette was kept until her death.

Next to the school is the Canal d’Ourq, where there was (all summer until just this week) a sandy beach (complete with lounge chairs and umbrellas) and a boathouse (with paddleboats, crew boats, sailboats, you name it) plus stuff for kids (dirt biking, face painting), all for free, thanks to the City of Paris. I spent many a sunny afternoon after class on those sandy banks and am already starting to miss it!

I just wrote an article about how to pick up French in Paris and I’m working on one about a Parisian artisan; the articles will come up on the Girls Guide to Paris site eventually, but for now I only have two published here. More than a hobby, writing has been a great push for exploring and getting immersed into this city. The last interview was conducted totally in French, save for the artisan’s words that I met with blank stares, like “gold-plated,” then she would clarify in English. It was kind of her to smile and blink politely through my broken questions, when it was obvious that she could have comfortably proceeded in English. As a student in France, I have been constantly amazed with the patience people have shown me as I pose butchered and nonsensical questions...to the point where I have probably jinxed myself for repeating how lucky and pleased I’ve been.

Finally, last week I had a harrowing experience at the office for French health insurance, which I’d love to recount in its comical and disastrous entirety, but the trauma is still too fresh. In brief, I was reduced to pieces in front of 50 or so French people when I tried to explain to the woman at the front desk that I needed to submit supplemental paperwork here at the office, as I had been instructed by the agency over the phone due to a particular case with my file (that the US Embassy does not personally translate birth certificates), instead of by mail which was the normal procedure. As the woman did not like to consider that anyone else knew better than her, especially not her own superiors and certainly not some weak foreign white girl, she screamed me into tears, then screamed at me to stop crying. Even for my low comprehension in French, the words wreaked of derision.

Amazingly, Mathieu was on the line and could hear everything through the phone at my side. Eventually she saw that I wasn’t budging, and that she was attracting everyone’s attention, and let me into the waiting room amid many pitying (or scornful?) gazes. When my number was finally called, I was not sent to the main two desks dealing with everyone else, but to the back, to the same evil angry woman. Continuing to clip every one of my sentences and still refusing to speak slowly or clarify anything I didn’t understand, she insisted I mail my paperwork and then concluded with a sharp, “There, exactly what I told you from the beginning. Now don’t you regret waiting all this time?” I collected my precious papers, grabbed my bag and quickly left. All the way across the room to the door I could hear her yelling, “Oui, c’est ca, c’est ca!!” (“Yeah, that’s it! That’s it!”) She could have easily left other, more gentle natures to take on the customer service, but she made sure that I was sent to her desk and not to anyone who would hear me out. Either she really, really hated me, or she loathed her job (or both). 

And that’s just my brief version! Now I have exhausted myself in reliving the drama. Time to recover...

Settling In

It's 2 weeks down, and I have to say, they've treated me well. Paris has been everything I've been yearning - the quiet and beautiful order that opposes Cairo's (also charming) clamour and chaos. For me the city has fulfilled all the stereotypes of food, fashion, gorgeous architecture and stellar public transportation.

But Paris has also surprised me with traits that I was either too ignorant or preoccupied to expect. It's diverse (my neighborhood is full of Muslim butcheries, bookstores, and clothing shops), tirelessly rainy (I'd estimate 4-5 sudden downpours per day), and most amazingly of all, friendly. When I stutter with my order at a shop or restaurant, the server/employee smiles and blinks and generally freezes in place until I finally make my desires clear. Everyone I've asked for help has courteously stopped and attended to my needs, even speaking slower for me. One man stopped in the middle of the street as we were jaywalking just to pick up a 5-cent coin I'd dropped. One server welcomed me to France, doted on me, and proclaimed that he hoped to be "votre favoreet serveur!"

Classes have also been pleasantly surprising. My class is a lovely melange of nationalities, mostly students my age and hoping to stay in France for awhile. Class is 9 AM - 1 PM (largely waking hours, for me), and afterward most of the class goes out to lunch together. You may not believe this (Mathieu hardly could, until we hosted my classmates for drinks last weekend), but we speak solely in French. I know for a fact that many of them speak impeccable English, but they're determined to quickly build up their French and staying within the language is amusing but proving effective. Mathieu's also helping to speak with me, show me silly French films, and read news with me. I love being a student again.

Here are a couple pictures of our very cosy apartment, but we don't want to get too attached because it's short-term. We're browsing for a year-long rental but, just as we'd be forewarned, it's super tough! Mathieu's hoping we find a place closer to his work (the 50-min commute is the only thing he doesn't love about his new job) and I'll ensure that there's a fold-out couch to accommodate future guests whom I'll be so excited to welcome (hint hint!)

First day of school

Feeling like a kid again! Tomorrow I will start French classes here: