Top 10: Week One (January 10th-17th)

It has been exactly one week since I arrived in France and I have already learned a great deal about French society and culture.. Partly because I am taking a mandatory orientation class called "French Society and Culture" ever day from 9am-1pm...but mostly because from 1pm-1am (and one night until 5am) after my class I have been trying to soak up every drop of Paris I can.

Here are the top 10 things I've learned thus far with supplemental anecdotes to accompany:

1. Parisians are ridiculously nice.
*As I already mentioned I met a Parisian girl who was studying at La Sorbonne on the first night who was very interesting and fun to talk to, but since then we have met about 5 other Parisians from the same kind of random encounters. Last Saturday I had lunch with my friends Ryan and Tom in Montmartre (Where the film Amelie was set). Afterwards we went on an aimless walk through the crooked streets up to Sacre Coeur. On our way we stopped at a vintage clothing store. Tom was trying something ridiculous on and made a joke in french after looking at himself in the mirror, the only other people in the store, a guy and a girl about our age, laughed at his joke and then introduced themselves. We started talking to them en francais and they were so cool and happy to talk to us that we ended up staying there for about 20 minutes just chatting surrounded by 70's denim jackets and fur coats. Tom exchanged numbers with the guy, Ben, and they made plans to all hang out later. Now in America, this could happen.. a funny meeting with foreigners and a promise of future socializing.. but In my experience it almost never follows through. Which is why it was so surprising to me that by 12pm that same night 10 amazingly interesting, funny, nice, and beautiful young French people were in Tom's apartment with us hanging out...and stayed until 5am. Aided by un petit peu of liquid courage I managed to speak French the whole night, even though they all spoke English. Perhaps it was luck.. and yes I've encountered some.. grumpy.. french people as well.. but every young person we've met has been more than friendly an hospitable.

2. A ride on the Subway can be fun!
Whenever people rag on the NYC subway system, saying it's too confusing, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't work, etc.. I get very upset and defend it's honor. "It works! The ACE, 123, 456 go up, the NQR goes diagonal, and the L goes across.. what don't you understand?" "We'll yes it doesn't run smoothly sometimes but you wouldn't work either if you had to cart around 8 million people a day..." These were some of my responses.. these were some of my beliefs until I met Le Metro Parisian, which is like NYC subway system except it actually makes sense, comes on time, is clean, clearly marked, and accessible from almost anywhere. It's like someone actually thought about what they were doing before digging the tunnels and laying the tracks. And the same person also thought it might be nice if the passengers riding the subway knew what was going on as well, so they had this wild idea to put up plenty of well designed diagrams to let everyone else in on their good idea. :)

3. Parisians don't drink water.
It's a scientific fact. I haven't quite figured out how it works yet, but its a real thing. I've woken up every morning gasping for air because I'm so dehydrated. When you go to a restaurant they don't immediately give you a bouteille d'eau, you have to ask for it, and when it comes it's the size of a nalgene bottle to split between 6 people in the tea cup sized cups they give you. I think they've replaced water with espresso and wine.. I can't imagine what that does for the digestive system.. but it can't be good.

4. You can buy Wine for 1euro..
It tastes like sandpaper but it still does the trick..

5. It's possible to cook a full 2 course meal with in a 2x4' kitchen in a 8x10 room with no utensils.. at all.
*more on this later

6. It's possible to fall in love 12 times a day...
Every waking hour of the day I see my new future husband.

7. Those magical hole in the wall, grungy, authentic bars that you are convinced only appear for locals like the "room of requirement" in Harry Potter, in fact exist and are WAY better than you possibly could have imagined them to be..


Last night was my friend Ryan's 21st birthday. Luckily he already has an amazing parisian philosophy major boyfriend who took us out to a bar last night called Le Piano Vache on a tiny side street next to Le Pantheon and on La Sorbonne campus. It was very wooden, dark, lit sparingly with edison light bulbs. It was packed with groups of young people sitting and talking to each other over a beer or scotch. The walls were covered in carvings, writings and old music posters. We kept walking in and entered a back room where a live three person jazz band had just started playing. The bartender shut everyone up ("Silence s'il vous plait! et pour les Americans 'Shut the fuck up!'") and everyone shut up and just listened to this extraordinary band for an hour. It was amazing. I recorded one of the song of my iPhone and I'll try to upload it here.

8. You can get pick pocketed but manage to not loose anything of value on Saturday and then go for a run and accidentally have your credit card fall out of your pocket on Sunday! :/

9. Don't say "Voila" unless you're absolutely certain what you are indicating is correct...

After we met Ben (the young Parisian who we partied with the other night) at the vintage store and before I got pick pocketed at Sacre Coeur I was very cold so I decided to get a hot chocolate at one of the many cafes that surround the Cathedral.
" Un chocolate chaud, s'il vous plait."
" 2 euro, madame" the vendor responds
I then dig in my purse and pull out what I thought was a 2 euro coin and place it ever so French-ly in his hand with a perfect "Voila"
to which he responded with a giant belly laugh, and Ryan and Tom started laughing at me too.. then after a really stressful and embarrassing 30 seconds of me trying to understand what was so funny.. I figured out that I had only given him a 1 euro coin.

"Voila"

10. The cutest guy I've met here lives on the floor above me and has a panoramic view of Paris.

That's all.