Why I love malamutes and colonial archives

How can you resist this beautiful puppydog? He looks just like my former dog Brandy.


See more pics here: The Daily Puppy

I just got back from Aix-en-Provence, which was unfortunately almost as cold as it has been in Paris. The colonial archives are, however, possibly the most pleasant archives in the entire world. The reading rooms have lots of light and are comfortable, the staff is incredibly friendly and helpful. And best of all, they have an incredibly liberal digital photo policy! It could only be better if the words "secret archives" were carved in stone over the entrance. However, this is the picture at the entrance to these archives:


If you can't read French slang, it says that the archives are an "anti-fascist zone," which is comforting. It's never good to have fascists in the archives.

Now I'm on my vacation, although I have to kill a few days before Aaron arrives. But I will take lots of pictures of us so that you can see my excellent new beret!

Bonnes fêtes à tous!

Christmas Time is Here

I took a break from my nightly television watching to stroll along Boulevard Haussmann to look at the Christmas lights and windows at the big department stores. These are pictures from Galeries Lafayette and Printemps, which are probably roughly equivalent to Macy's and Fortunoff in the US. I really liked the lights on the Galeries Lafayette because it had a very nice North African mosaic pattern with lights that went on and off in really beautiful and complex patterns. Here are a few examples:





Then Printemps had a kind of tacky setup with nets of lights over their domes and then lights under the main awnings of the store. For some reason they had a Norlandic theme with lots of hideous windows with what I imagine were supposed to be fairies with blond braids that kept getting hung up in trees and things and hideous crystal glassware everywhere. But they did have a few cute animal scenes including these penguins and polar bears. And to its credit, Printemps did have a couple of large pictures of George Clooney on the front of the building.




Unfortunately all the parents kept pushing their little kids up to the front and being quite rude so I didn't get very good pictures. Christmas is really when I most hate strollers and little kids. Why would you bring your stroller onto the busiest sidewalk in the entire city just to spend two seconds looking at a mechanical penguin, especially when the temperature was probably in the teens at most (fahrenheit that is)? Plus we nearly saw a few out and out brawls between parents whose children couldn't get close enough to the front and were ready to take everyone down. Parents get pretty psycho when you mess with their child's enjoyment of "the magic of Christmas."

Those of you who know me well enough to know about my unspoken-of past life in the sign language performing group will understand why any phrase that contains the words "children" or "magic" at Christmas makes me scowl ferociously. I have no other way to explain my lack of Christmas cheer. Fortunately I'm going to a party tonight with lots of spiced wine, cider and cheese so that should raise my Christmas spirits!

Au Champs Elysées!

My sleeping schedule has somehow shifted a few hours so that I usually can't get to sleep before 1 or 2 and it takes a lot of self-persuasion to haul myself out of bed by 9 am. I think it is partly to do with the fact that the sun doesn't actually rise here until that late hour of nearly 9, and if the sun's not up, I see no reason why I should be!

The (good?) side about this new schedule is that it gives me an opportunity to listen to late night radio on France Inter, roughly the equivalent to NPR. At around 1:30 last night I was laying there trying to think myself to sleep when the song "Au Champs Elysées" came on the radio. Now if you never took French in junior high or high school, you have probably never heard this song. And I have to say this is the first time I have ever heard it outside of my high school French class. But it reminded me of how cheesy European songs are all the rage in language programs. In addition to the venerable "Au Champs Elysées," French teachers often bring out "Frère Jacques" or "Alouette" or even Johnny Hallyday when they're desperate (previous postings have already outlined my opinions on his musical talent).

But as I was lying there thinking about these songs, I suddenly remembered that, while French songs kind of suck, Dutch songs are horrible! When I did my language course in the Netherlands a few years ago, everyday we could look forward to some sort of awful sing along in pronunciation class and at the organized events planned for us (and you all know how I feel about forced groupy-groupiness and organized events - if they'd made us wear matching t-shirts I would have gone AWOL to Amsterdam!). Since it was the 50th year or something of this organization's international language school, they brought several Dutch "celebrities" to entertain us, including the Netherlands' most famous novelist of World War II ( and since they can never move beyond WWII, he probably will be forever), and some old pop singer who must have really been desperate to come sing in our cafeteria/ping pong room with a band of dirty old men who in the bar later were hitting on the beautiful Russian girls with astonishing tactics. But her most famous song, apparently, is one of the Dutch people's favorites because it is all about the smell of the canals in Amsterdam. I don't remember the canals smelling all that bad, but apparently sometimes they do and it must be immortalized in song!

But by far the worst offender, in my mind, in the cheesy European song department, is the song titled "'t Is altijd lente in de ogen van de tandartsassistente," which translates to "It is always springtime in the eyes of the dental hygienist." If the Dental hygienist union ever needed a theme song, this would be it! I wonder if this song ever made it to Eurovision... I think it might have fit in beautifully!

Do any of my fellow foreign travelers have any classic songs to add to the list?

I can never drink Orangina again

And this is why:

How to dislocate ribs

A step by step guide by my sister Robin...

Robin's blog

I went to the Sorbonne today but would have had to cross the student picket line to go to class. Didn't seem worth it so once again the strike has foiled my attempts to be a good graduate student.

At least the suburbs are on fire again. I came to France in a good year!

Language embarassment of the day: I was trying to fix the printer in the office of my archive and I mixed up the word "brouillon" with the word "brouillard." Instead of saying that there was "scratch paper" in the printer, I said that there was "fog" in the printer and that was the message that circulated the building until the computer technician came in to fix it. Normally my humiliations are just in my own head but this one will last for many more weeks I'm sure. Oh well.

I'll write more in a few days once I get this other grant proposal in hand... why do I want to go to Algeria again??

When everything is on strike and you have too much time on your hands...

I watched The Bourne Identity this afternoon (still one of my favorite action/spy movies) and discovered that the final scene in the Paris apartment when Matt Damon takes out Chris Cooper (unfortunately leaving Julia Stiles to perform in future Bourne installments) and drops down several flights of stairs on top of a dead body takes place in the courtyard about 10 feet from my apartment! And you can actually see my street in the movie, and several shots of the cafe that I steal my wireless internet from. It's like sort of being famous without the paparazzi!

I also spent much of the day googling people from my past and on a whim googled myself. There are lots of strange entries, but also a photo taken from the FB reception at the French senate building just to prove to you all that I am in France, drinking lots of alcohol (I think this was about my third glass of champagne - open bar!), and fulfilling my duties as a FB fellow by smiling for pictures:



What a productive day I've had!

Star Academy!

Fortunately I have a television in my apartment here, otherwise I would be very bored indeed. The only problem is that it gets four channels on a good day, and sometimes they can be very blurry. But perhaps this is a good thing. I'm already sneaking home from the archives in time to catch Crossing Jordan (dubbed into French of course) and Verliebt in Berlin (German Ugly Betty, also dubbed into French). In the evening I can dine with a fine selection of American medical/scientific/police programs, as they show every single CSI, Cold Case, or whatever other Jerry Bruckheimer telelvision crap exists. Unfortunately the dubbing just highlights how crap the writing is, so you can imagine my delight a couple of weeks ago on finding a program on the people who restore France's chateaux and antiquities. The tour of the Sèvres china workshop was fantastic!

Anyway back to the main topic - Star Academy. I have never actually watched an episode of American Idol, but I have been fortunate to catch several episodes of the French version, Star Academy. It seems to be on at all hours of the day, in a Big Brother-like fashion, following the contestants around the chateau they all live in with hidden cameras to catch the little divas strangling each other. It's a fairly big production, but I was pleasantly surprised with the talent of the contestants, as they only accept people who actually play instruments and write their own music. I don't know if American Idol does that. But every week they have the big show with famous "musicians" who come on and perform with the contestants. The last couple of weeks the headliners were Celine Dion and Kylie Minogue (who are the "godmothers" of this year's show). Both were fine. While I don't always admire their music, I can certainly appreciate their popularity.

This week, however, was a bit of a horror. The major headliner this week was Johnny Hallyday. Who is Johnny Hallyday, you ask? Well.

He is by far the most famous rock musician in France. He is very old, not very attractive, not a great singer in my opinion, and just generally creepy. Nobody knows him outside of France. His main claim to fame among Americans is probably that he is the uncle of Michael Vartan, who starred with and dated Jennifer Garner from Alias before she married Ben Affleck (does anyone else thing she'd make an excellent best friend?). His music tends to be pretty crap, as most French rock does. My dad has a theory that a language needs lots of hard consonants to make it good for rock music, which of course French lacks almost completely. It does, however, make for some nice lite-pop ballads! Johnny's new album features his attempt to become Johnny Cash. He wears all black, also has the name Johnny, and plays acoustic guitar while singing a song called "Always," which is in French except for the word "always," which pops up every chorus. It's pretty horrible and they keep showing the music video for it on TV after German Ugly Betty so I have to be pretty vigilant to change the channel quickly otherwise I have to hide out in the bathroom until it is finished. But the French adore Johnny, one might even say worship him. I may not get my residence permit if someone from the Interior Ministry finds out that I am disparaging him in a blog that about four people in the United States read! It might in fact be a Homeland security sort of issue.


The other big act of Star Academy last night was Tokio Hotel, the teenage German (rock?) band with very architectural hair. I sort of thought they were a bit of a joke for a few weeks after I discovered who they were, but apparently they're not. It is very cold in Paris right now (we might see snow tonight!) but the announcer of the Star-Ac said that teenage girls had slept outside the theater for three nights in order to get in to see Tokio Hotel. And in the broad camera sweeps of the audience, there were several teenage girls with bangle bracelets all the way up their arms weeping convulsively in the audience. I do not understand. Apparently it is somewhat like what happened in the US when the Beatles arrived. But at least the Beatles were singing in English. I don't think anyone has any idea what Tokio Hotel is singing about since it's all in German. But I have to say, one thing I really appreciate is the way in which the lead singer has created the ultimate smoky eye. I experimented with the smoky eye for several months when I was a Kit Kat Girl in our lavish production of Cabaret as an undergrad. It really is a challenge to not overshadow (if you do, you look like a raccoon).


All in all, I think I'm stuck waiting for the next installment of patrimonial restoration documentaries before I will begin to enjoy television again. Is television in the rest of Europe this bad? My only other experience is the Netherlands, which actually has pretty good tv since they just import things and don't dub them. Obviously England has the BBC and things like EastEnders, but what about Germany, Italy, or Spain?

The SNCF should pay for my hip replacement

Once again the entire transport industry has decided to strike. Of course that means vacation days for me since I learned during last month's strike that archives are closed and libraries don't deliver books on strike days. So not a huge deal really. Except that one of my sister's friends was in town for a scientific conference out in the suburbs on a train line that completely stopped running. So she came back into Paris last night to stay with me and then we had to walk down to her hotel by the Eiffel Tower. I would draw a map, but I am not so technically proficient with blogger to do that, however it is worth noting that the Eiffel Tower is across town. Two hours across town. And it's cold today. And I walked home again.

All of this to say that my bad hips are acting up again and I can now barely walk after going to her hotel and coming back home. Since the strike is being orchestrated by the train line unions, I think that they should then pay for my hip replacement surgeries when I need them... it feels like it could be in a few weeks! It has convinced me, though, that instead of trying to walk across the city to the library tomorrow, I am just going to work at home. I wish I had CBAM's heating pad though.

The students are also beginning their strikes now. Their favorite method is to block train stations and force them to shut down the electricity on the train lines, blocking entire regions. Except that's pretty ineffective if the train conductors are on strike. These unions should perhaps talk to each other in order to avoid such redundancy. But last night I was coming out of my class at the Sorbonne (yes I am taking a class at the Sorbonne) about 6 pm, and there was huge crowd of several hundreds of people blocked at the door. We were let out about ten at a time and then once we got out, I realized that police in riot gear had blocked off the entire street and were checking everyone's bags before they were let out of the street! Insanity! I felt for the first time like it was 1968 and they were waiting for students with bombs or something.

Anyway. Vacation day tomorrow with lots of yoga to try to stretch my body back out. Hope things in the US are going a bit better.

How do you know if you have the Pox?

At the risk of grossing you all out, I am going to write an entry about a weird condition I seem to have developed. I will not, however, compound the problem by providing images.

As CBAM often points out to me, I really should be dead by now. I have been plagued by a lifetime of weird illnesses and medical problems (although not as weird as my youngest sister who has had most of her internal organs removed and was recently diagnosed as having both a kidney stone and several dislocated ribs, although how one dislocates ribs I know not). Ever since I got to France my skin has been behaving in not so lovely ways - perhaps from stress, although more likely from the heavily scented laundry detergent one must buy here. Alas, Tide Free has not made its way to the Continent yet and so I really have no other option than to use what they have here or not wash my clothes.

This last week, however, I have gotten little red bumps on my neck and chest. They are not behaving like pimples or a rash so I can only assume that I have somehow gotten Monkeypox, or some other variety of pox. I am no expert in medieval diseases, but I do live in the neighborhood in Paris known as the Marais (or "the swamp" in French) and in a very old building, next to the medieval quarter. Although one of my favorite history books includes details on how the French cleaned up this swamp through the wonders of a magical, modern sewer system (including free tours for the ladies and gents), I am still of the mind that the miasma of disease is still floating around my building. Hopefully, though, my twentieth century immune system will prevent me from dying, as I would have long before in the medieval times.

All of this probably goes back to my long history of allergies to very strange things. At first it was strange foods (broccoli?) and pretty much every plant that has ever grown. Then after a wilderness expedition of several weeks with the National Outdoor Leadership School, during which time I became the legendary "girl who destroyed her own feet," I developed staph infections in both of my feet, which killed off what little immune system I had left. I then proceeded to go to college in Texas (a state that I am very allergic to) and kept getting sick with strep, sinus infections and everything else. The weird part about the whole thing is that every time I would get an infection, I would also break out in a rash. Nobody could explain it until several months later I visited a dermatologist in Cheyenne (who is notorious for her uncontained excitement every time she gets to use a scalpel) who quickly proclaimed that I was in fact "allergic to infections." I then took antibiotics for several months and did in fact seem to be cured of this weird allergy.

I am happy to note, however, that I have really not had much trouble with migraines since I got to France. Perhaps it's the lack of contact with New Jersey that has saved me or just the thought that if I see one more doctor who looks at me as though I was hysterical or have a "wandering womb," I will probably prescribe myself a rest cure and then end up like Virgina Woolf (I must add that while Unity Mitford had a much more dramatic (and botched) suicide attempt when England declared war on Germany, I would rather go out like Virginia Woolf).

The good news is, I did finally get my bank card and the proper form to turn in my residence permit, although the prefecture called the FB office today to inform them that since it took so long to get this form, I must now turn in more recent documents attesting to my living situation. Grrr. It's their own damn fault for changing the rules!

Major Dissertation Crisis

Before I freak out and start emailing professors, I thought I would ask the collective wisdom of the three or so readers of my blog for advice on how to deal with my first major dissertation research crisis.

Subscribing to the po-mo, hippy sort of research method, I wrote my proposal with the intention of then discarding it to go with the flow of whatever was in the archive. That's all fine and dandy as I am finding exactly the sorts of documents I was expecting to find in the archive I am currently working in. The problem, however, is that there are about 2 billion too many of them to actually read and/or photograph. And my list of archives to visit grows exponentially by the day. Therefore, before I completely lose my sanity, I would very much like to know whether it is more advisable to cut the project down to what I think are more manageable proportions now and stick to that path (and new argument) or should I keep this new path in the back of my mind while continuing to look at lots and lots of different sources and documents?

I'm quite confused about what to do, as you can see. Mainly I'm just concerned that if I cut the project down too much (which is what my blood pressure is telling me to do) I will lose the part of the project that is the "cool" part. On the other hand, if I continue on this path, I may never finish the dissertation at all because I will be buried under a mountain of decaying typewriter paper (whoever thought tissue paper would be a good way to make extra copies of documents was an utter moron).

So, dear readers, would you rather read about people who throw off the burdens of the nation-state to defend human rights and ethical principles, or about the ways that Christians in postwar Europe thought about Islam (with, of course, a detour through some concentration camps in Algeria)?

Who should get a noodle? Me!!

Today has been a difficult day. I awoke with the hope that I would finally accomplish the two bureaucratic tasks that have prevented me from enjoying my Parisian life: finish the insane paperwork to get my residence permit, and get my bank card so I can actually access the fellowship money sitting in my bank. Alas, neither was very successful. I did, however, manage to convince my personal banking advisor to at least start the process to get me my bank card, although this was after waiting in the lobby for more than an hour and explaining for the eightieth time that I was not going to get my residence permit for several months probably, and that it was ridiculous to expect me to wait that long to get the money that I am supposed to be living on. I also pointed out that several other friends in the same situation had gotten their bankcards several weeks ago (and from the same bank!) It's pretty insane how everything in France depends on the specific location, so while Katie could get her bankcard from this same bank in the 13th, I, in the 4th, can not because of some person who doesn't want to give it to me! GRRRR.

But I have to say, the thing that really ruined my day was that during my daily visit to Perez Hilton, I discovered that he just got a goldenoodle puppy. (Some people call them Goldendoodles, but I like goldenoodle better). Anyone who has been around me the last few months knows that Aaron and I have spent several productive hours putting together a list of the four puppies we want with their respective names. Top of the list is, of course, a goldenoodle named Noodle. I either want one that is modeled on Riley, the lovely little black muppet I dogsat last spring, or this cutie


(many more adorable pictures can be found at http://dailypuppy.com/index.php?itemid=1216)
How come Perez Hilton gets a puppy and I don't? Oh the tragedies of life!

Someday I will get one though, and she will play so nicely with our other puppies:
1. a wolf/malamute named Tzara (after Tristan Tzara of course) who looks like my beautiful Brandy, who died about 4 years ago (seen here 'dancing' with my mom):


2. a Bernese mountain dog named Djuna (after Djuna Barnes)


3. and Aaron's favorite, a Newfoundland (or Newfie) named Roxie Sparklebaum. He picked that name, not me. Newfies are known as water rescue dogs so Aaron envisions Roxie Sparklebaum as a superhero Newfie who will save many drowning children. And everytime she jumps into the water (à la this dog), Aaron will say in his cartoony voice "Go get em Roxie Sparklebaum!!"


I think we will be excellent dog owners, although clearly we cannot be trusted with children or other human beings.

Sunday Stroll

It was a sunny, cloudless sky today (although quite a bitter chill) when I stepped out for a stroll. I decided to take some pictures of my neighborhood so you could see how charming it is.

This picture is of my front door and the Scottish pub that my apartment sits several floors above. I actually live on the fifth floor of a building with a very narrow, wooden staircase, probably leftover from the medieval period. It's nice to live above a Scottish pub, except on rugby nights. Fortunately last night was the final game of the Rugby World Cup, and South Africa roundly stomped on Britain so it got quiet fairly early.


This next picture is mainly just to show how anything can be cause for celebration in Paris. This lovely shop is advertising the Grand Sauerkraut Festival to be held sometime soon. I might just have to go to that, just to see what there is to celebrate about sauerkraut. The man at the bus stop near where I was standing when I took this picture looked at me like I was insane to take a picture of that shop.


This is one of the entrances to the lovely Place des Vosges, which is a residential square where Victor Hugo once lived. It's hard to take pictures of because it is so big, so you can just imagine that this is what it looks like inside, in a big square, with grass in the middle.


As you might already know, many things in France are closed on Sundays and Mondays. The strict labor laws allow people to take two days a week off (although that may change soon) and since tourist season is winding down, and shopowners have little reason to work on Sundays. Yet this bakery has a line halfway down the block! It either must be the only one open in this area or it must be really good! I'll have to go buy a baguette there this week to check out what the fuss is about.


One of the great things about Paris is of course the open markets. There is a huge one at the Bastille on Sundays (the prison was torn down soon after its storming in 1789, and replaced in 1830 with this monument to the revolutionaries).


Normally I love a farmers market, but today it was a madhouse and I felt a little overwhelmed. HoweverI felt much better when I saw this gentleman juggling with a vase of goldfish balanced on his head. I've never seen anything that cool in New York City!

Two thumbs up

I have been feeling fairly depressed after reading a passage from Germaine Tillion's book L'Algérie en 1957 yesterday. If you don't know, Germaine Tillion was a French anthropologist and former concentration camp inmate who worked harder than just about anybody to inform the French about their misplaced sense of morality in regards to the Algerian War. In this passage she is, I think, trying to emotionally blackmail the French, using their vision of themselves as the inventors and progenitors of the Rights of Man (and of a strange paternalistic version of the Civilizing Mission). She writes (my own translation):

"You find yourselves, then - like everyone - left with these emotional reactions. For our 'conditioned reflexes' are - and I know that I speak for the majority of us - a passionate love for Justice, a quasi instinctive solidarity with the oppressed, prisoners, fugitives, but also a fidelity to our country when it is attacked and when it is in danger."

She seems to sum up the French moral position fairly well and hopes that people will once again revert back to their instincts in terms of their moral position. It is clear that many French behaved very badly during the Algerian War, but what I respect about their situation is that when evidence of torture and the regroupment camps in Algeria were exposed to the French public (through many clandestine sources), they actually did something about it and put enough pressure on the government that they eventually pulled out of Algeria. What depresses me about all this is that when Americans were confronted with Abu Ghraib and Blackwater, they brush it all off as 'necessary' or a single incident, condemning the lowest enlisted soldiers and refusing to interrogate the causes of the disease. Unfortunately I don't think that it would be possible for someone to call on Americans to rediscover their love for justice, and solidarity with the oppressed because I'm not sure it exists anymore, if it ever did. Individualism and nationalism have become our national morality, and it is very sad.

I was, however, quite encouraged when I found this article this morning in the Washington Post. Apparently Pete Stark is considered by many to be a raving lunatic without any class, and I have to admit I am appalled by previous things he has said, but I have to give him two thumbs up for saying out loud what a lot of us have been thinking for a long time: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/18/
Republicans are apparently very offended, but perhaps that's a good sign.

Okay I'm done venting and being political. I will go back to posting pretty pictures of Paris now.

Black Thursday!

Well what an adventure today has been! In case you didn't read the New York Times (which had a better explanation than any of the French papers or tv news programs I examined), the French transit industry is on strike. At first it didn't seem like it would be a big deal since it was just the train lines that are going on strike to protest against reforms against their pension funds (apparently back in the day workin on the railroad was considered a fairly dangerous job so as a RR employee, you could retire after 37.5 years of employment, as opposed to the 40 years that normal chaps must put in). But, as tends to happen here, the subways, buses, and apparently everyone else also decided to take the day off and run around the streets yelling loudly.

I, after eating one of the largest meals of my life last night, decided a nice walkie would do me good so I walked to my archive, which is about an hour away from my apartment. It was a nice walk though, and I discovered many things I would never have seen, including the scene of a murder in an outdoor sculpture garden next to the river, and the most beautiful view of Paris in the mid-morning sun (I unfortunately didn't take a picture). And I had my nice walk only to get to the archive to see that the entire building was closed. It's not really an archive, but a real working aid organization for asylum seekers and I just sit in a room with some boxes and don't interact with anyone. But still - they could have told me yesterday that they weren't even planning on opening today.

My plan to be a good graduate student foiled, I decided to hike a few more blocks over to the Bibliothèque nationale, where I found out that during a strike you can easily get a place to sit in the reading rooms, but you cannot get any books. I did, however, read some interesting reference materials - for about 4 hours - until I decided it was time to trek home. On the way home I walked by the Jardin des Plantes (I'm mystified as to why you have to specify that it is a 'garden of plants' - aren't most gardens full of plants??), where they had this lovely dragon sculpture made out of recycled metal and spewing more metal out of its mouth. Pretty cool!


Finally on the way home I crossed a different bridge than usual and saw the front of this sculpture on the bridge I usually cross. I think it's fairly beautiful, even if it's made out of cement.


But of course the big news of the day, which you will only catch if you read the BBC and not just CNN, is that Sarkozy and his wife are divorcing! So shocking! Well not really, since everyone has been anticipating this since she disappeared from public view as soon as he won the election. Some funny cartoons in the paper this morning said that "Cecilia is on strike indefinitely, and will not offer a minimum of services." This is only funny, I guess, if you know that everyone is debating about what a "minimum of services" means during this strike. Apparently not much.

Well I have 4 different beverage glasses on my desk so I had better get busy and do some dishes. Hopefully there will be even more excitement tomorow to report.

And a few more...

Here are a few more photos of my outing last Sunday. Unfortunately I then got a cold and didn't leave the house for a few days and today had to haul myself out of bed to go to the archive before the "I haven't done any research this week" guilt set in. This weekend I will try to take some more interesting pictures of less, how shall we put it... touristy locales.

I did have a request for some footage of bombed-out Paris from World War II and I am happy to inform my readers that the Germans never really bombed Paris. It was much too easy just to march down the Champs-Elysees and much too pretty to destroy. Therefore the best WWII footage you will get (besides Hitler at the Eiffel Tower - included below) are a few markers to deported Jewish children which hang outside of elementary schools and the Shoah Memorial (which is apparently only a few blocks away from my apartment, though I can't say for sure as I have never been there.)


Normandy was pretty much destroyed though. I once had a nice postcard of the before and after with death and destruction on the left and then pretty restored cathedrals on the right. I'll have to see if I can find it for you.

But here is modern day Paris again. The first image is of the Palais de Justice on the Ile de la Cité, with Sainte Chapelle in the background. Apparently Sainte Chapelle is the most beautiful church in the world, but I have never been in so I cannot corroborate that theory. Plus I haven't visited all the churches in the world.



Next is a photo of a lot of rollerskaters careening through the streets of Paris. I wanted to cross the street to go home from my nice walkie, but could I? Oh no, I had to wait for fully 10 minutes while thousands of people in roller skates took up the whole street. I have no idea why. Strange things like this often happen in Paris. Why just the day before I couldn't go to Monoprix across the street because of the march against Genetically modified foods that was taking place in my neighborhood!



And finally here is the Hotel de Ville (or City Hall) where in winter they put up a big ice skating rink and in Rugby season you can watch the matches on the lawn. Apparently they had a hideous Pavarotti memorial concert here last week as well, but of course I missed that.



Well that's all for now. I shall take some more interesting pictures this weekend and go in search of hidden mysteries.

Des photos de Paris

Here are some long-promised photos of Paris for you all. It is a beautiful day out without any clouds and very warm so once I finished cleaning my apartment today I set out for a little walk around the city.

This is the view right outside my front door toward a lovely little square with restaurants and shops called la Place Ste. Catherine:


Next up is the church off of the Rue de Rivoli, about 100 feet from my apartment. I can't find out the name of the church but it looks really old:


Now here are some nice photos of the Seine and various landmarks. The first picture is looking from the Right Bank toward the Ile St. Louis, which is one of the medieval islands in the middle of the Seine. The next picture is on a bridge between the Ile St. Louis and the Left Bank, looking toward the Ile de la Cité and Notre Dame:


I hope you enjoy! I'll post some more tomorrow. Let me know if you have any burning requests.

The wonder of the internets

Dear readers,

I am happy to tell you that I have finally managed to get my DSL hooked up so I can now communicate with the outside world for more than 30 seconds at a time. This is actually a fairly significant victory in a week full of setbacks. My modem arrived at the post office on Monday and I had to wait in line for nearly an hour there just to get it, and I came home to install it, and of course it didn't work. The installation CD would only get through the first two steps and then I would get a message pop up that my computer did not recognize the files.

This was disappointing as I was always under the impression that Macs were magical machines that could magically make everything work without a lot of effort on my part. So I gave up for a few days, but came home from the archive yesterday determined to prevail! I unplugged and replugged everything and still nothing. Then I got onto a very unstable wireless network to read some Mac message boards in French where several solutions were suggested. The easiest was just to change ethernet cables since the one that comes with the modem is apparently crap. So I did that and lo and behold it magically worked!!! Yay!!! I love my pretty little Macbook.

This then allowed me to iChat with both of my sisters about what I was having for dinner, and then talk to Aaron on Skype for an hour about the new Radiohead album and the sexually suggestive M&Ms commercials* on television. So far I have not done any work or research, but I'm sure that someday I will.

I am going shopping today to see how long it can take me to spend 100 Euros. Probably not long if I buy books, but I also need some clothes so we shall see. I shall also try to remember to take some photos of the city to share with you all.

* This M&Ms commercial featured a regular M&M, a peanut M&M and several humans playing strip poker and when the peanut M&M lost the hand, he was ordered to undress whereby he said "yes but I don't really want to show my nuts in front of the ladies." (and I thought M&Ms were such a wholesome, puritanical chocolate candy!)

Allez les Bleus

My guess is that most of you have no idea that the Rugby World Cup is currently taking place in France (and sometimes in Wales, although I have no idea why). Last night the French team beat the New Zealand team, which is called in French "Les All Blacks" since their jerseys are all black. The New Zealand team was the favorite to win the whole thing so the upset was very exciting in France. There's something different about sports in Europe. I know people in America get very excited about sport, but here it seems much more public because people are all in bars watching and out in the streets. I don't give a hoot about rugby, of course, but my apartment is just above a Scottish pub so on game nights, I don't get to sleep until about 2 am. Last night was much worse. There may have been cars set on fire or something, but all I heard were screams and cars honking their horns until about 4 am.

The France/New Zealand matchup was seemingly foreordained by a television commercial sponsored by Toyota. I've seen it several times but can't quite figure out if it is racist or not. I'll let you take a look and tell me what you think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7lqUOjxj7k

The more interesting thing last night was that they held what they call the "nuit blanche" or 'white night' where all of the museums in Paris were free and open until about 2 am. I went to the Centre Pompidou to see a film with some friends and then wandered around the museum in the middle of the night. It was pretty awesome. Especially with that museum, since I have, on previous visits, not been so impressed with the modern art. A and I visited it a couple of summers ago and he had to explain to me why a room with a theme of 'white' (where of course all the pieces in the room were white) was important or interesting. It's much better after a couple of glasses of wine and late night tomfoolery.

My other escapade yesterday (while avoiding writing my grant proposals, which are killing me) was to visit the Père Lachaise cemetery. I have never actually been, but have wanted to on many previous visits to Paris. There are lots of famous people buried there, including Oscar Wilde, and lots of other writers. Jim Morrison used to be buried there, and it was fairly hilarious to watch the American tourists trying to find the place where he used to be. I ended up realizing that I was very distressed by this and by the whole fact of pilgrimmages to famous people's tombs so you can leave crap and dead flowers on them. It's very strange and I wish someone could explain to me why this happens.

Je voudrais un croissant

Dear Readers,

I have been having many bureaucratic adventures the last few days. There's a vicious circle that exists between the Ministry of the Interior, my bank, and the university I am attempting to register at. Each one requires the proof of at least one of the other to move any process forward, but getting one to take the lead is proving quite difficult. So I am sitting at home waiting for my university registration to go through so I can get my residence permit so I can get my bankcard that is sitting at the bank. Until this all happens, my new wardrobe will have to wait.

In spite of all of these difficulties, I adore Paris. I thought I would share with you (à la Oprah) some of my favorite things, albeit they don't have much to do with France.

The Flight of the Conchords:


The Daily Puppy:
www.dailypuppy.com

Hopefully these will fill your depressed hearts with joy, especially before the big exam!

Running all around

We finally had our orientation for all of the FB participants here in France. Despite my worries about the strange people who might be here, I am pleased to say that I have found some kindred spirits among the historians, and the art historian we have brought into our little group. We're a fairly snarky group but nearly all the girls have husbands doing MFAs in film, which is an odd coincidence but pretty damn cool.

The orientation was a little too "groupy-groupy" in the words of one of the other historians. I feel a bit like Rachel on her Taglit trip, but I'm not a huge fan of the FB kool-aid. We had lots of meetings, and then a reception at the Senat in the Palais du Luxembourg, which is an incredible building. The US ambassador had one of the worst accents I've ever heard, which made me feel better about my own French skills (I'll probably get in great big trouble for saying that, but it's true!) The palace, which is in the Luxembourg gardesn was pretty amazing, as was the free champagne!

The real highlight, however, was the behind the scenes tour yesterday of the Bibliothèque nationale, a building known for its mysterious methods and the fact that the reading rooms are underground and you feel like you descend several levels of hell to get down there. But it was amazing to go back into the belly of the machine and see where the books actually live.

Well I'm starting to do work now so I should probably leave off and get back to it. Sorry I haven't had internet access for the last week but hopefully will be a better correspondent from this week on.
For those of you taking exams, remember to breathe, to sleep, and to eat. And I promise you'll do fabulous! Bonne chance!

Some piccies

I have found a very strange way of connecting to the internet. There is a global wireless network called Fon that you can sign up with where you share your wireless and then you can access wireless around the world wherever there is a Fon network. You can also just buy wirelss from the network at the cost of $2 a day, which is what I am doing. I am called an 'alien' in the weird lingo of the network, but it seems to fit!

I've had an interesting couple of days trying to open a bank account and do other sorts of bureaucratic things. Oddly once you find the right bank, it's easier to open a bank account in France than in New Jersey - you just have to know where to go apparently.

I also have had the pleasure of seeing Tony Parker (Eva Longoria's French basketball-playing husband) starring in a music video from his new rap album, since they play it on French tv during commercial breaks. It is called "premier love" and is pretty damn hilarious! Here is the You Tube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oID5xu3pXis

Here are a few pictures of my apartment and the view from outside the FB office. I'll take a few more as I wander through more neighborhoods in the upcoming weeks. I pretty much live in the coolest neighborhood of the coolest city on earth. Now I have to get to work! I can't get into the archives for another few days so I've been working on my Arabic. I can now read and write and halfway pronounce three letters of the Arabic alphabet - it's slow going with these semitic languages. I may be able to read a few sentences by the time I'm 50 years old (that's the goal at least!)

Finalement à Paris

Well I'm finally in Paris after all that buildup. My apartment is lovely with the exception of the lack of wireless internet. Unfortunately the last tenant (from Harvard) apparently skipped out on several hundred Euros worth of DSL bills and my landlady is not at all willing to let me get wireless in here. After a fruitless search for free wireless in my neighborhood, I have to come up with a better plan.

I will post some pics as soon as I take some and as soon as I have a fast enough internet connection!
I miss you all lots and lots!

The Beginning

Well it's just two days before I leave for Paris to enjoy some pain et vin in the Marais. Unfortunately the weight limits of my luggage are cramping my style and I'm leaving out some important clothing items to make room for my dictionaries and important books like Love in a Cold Climate. I would never even consider moving one state away, much less across the pond, without my Mitford Sisters.

But it's lovely being ABD. Today my most important project was to determine whether I looked more intellectual or European with my reading glasses or my distance glasses. This is a very important decision. I am including the pictures below so that you can vote.

For those of you who don't know, the name of my blog comes from the question I am most often asked when in France and someone asks my name. While it sounds very exotic in the United States and even vaguely exotic in the Netherlands, in France "Fontaine" just means "fountain." So when I say my name, they all say "Fontaine, you mean like 'fountain'?" and I reply "oui, exactement." Then they usually assume, despite my weird Jane-Austen-like first name, that I am French and I have to explain, "no, in fact, my father was a Dutch immigrant to the United States who changed the name from its original 'Fontijn' to something more pronouncable like 'Fontaine'." And they get really bummed out. My friend Antoine's mother has decided that in fact my ancestors were French Huguenots who fled to the Netherlands to escape the wrath of Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, but that originally they existed in perfect harmony somewhere in central France, thanks to Henry IV's compromise with his wicked mother-in-law." (See Rachel, I do know some Early Modern history!)

So there you have it - the entire linguistic background of my last name and inspiration for many a European fantasy. So off I go to my FB fun (the you-know-what program is now codenamed FB to avoid those pesky RSS spies in the archives). Bon voyage à moi!

So which ones make me look smarter?

Reading glasses:

Distance glasses: