My Eiffel Tower Extravaganza

I had hoped this week would be easy and lazy and boring; it is instead shaping up to be one of my busiest weeks yet.

I was woken up today at 8:30 am by the sound of my cell phone. Some woman was calling me about a babysitting job. She wanted me to meet her at 10:30. I had planned to meet Serena at 10 to buy black pants from this store, but we ended up going to the store earlier so I still met with the woman and made it to school by 12.

I've been emailing dad about it. The job sounds like a big commitment, but two months of slaving away on a beach in the South of France sounds a hell of a lot better than slaving away at American Eagle. For me, it feels like a very big decision. Like, I would hate to miss out on a good opportunity... I want to do everything!

Anyway, tomorrow I have class from 9am-3pm, then meeting with the potential babysitting family at 5:30pm. I'm meeting the other girls in my group to work on our project around 6:00ish, but a lot of us will be late. Then at 8:00pm, I'm supposed to meet my friends from UCR, Alex and Kori, underneath the Eiffel Tower and we're going out to dinner. They went to study abroad in Rome, but theyre visiting Paris for a few days. I'm going to be visiting Rome in March.

On Wednesday, I have babysitting from 9:30am to 12:30pm, then class from 1:45-3pm.

On Thursday my group is presenting for Human Resources Management class.

On Friday, I am doing a solo presentation for Entrepreneurship class, and then babysitting at 4:15.

And on Saturday, we actually have class, just this one day because we're missing so many Monday classes because of Spring Break, and afterward I am going shopping with my friend Mathilde. She is Parisian but obsessed with all things LA. We always walk around after class and talk; today, we walked under the Eiffel tower. It was funny because she was asking me what certain American phrases mean. She wanted to know the difference between a soccer mom and a trophy wife ("A trophy wife is a woman who wants her kids to win all the trophies, non?")

Oh I just remembered. Tomorrow in painting class we get to paint a naked person! That will be interesting...

Groceries

So this morning, I set out early to look for food. I had an idea in mind of the grocery store I wanted to go to, Monoprix: it's the only one I've found that has the cheese I like. Their frozen pizza wasn't bad either. However, there was a farmer's market set up on Avenue de President Wilson, close to where I live, so I decided to go there instead. I ended up buying a ton of fruits: apples, oranges, green grapes, strawberries, and a million dark cherries. As I was lugging it home, I kept thinking that I'm going to be living off cherries for the next week.


The weather has been beautiful lately, really sunny and warm, so I wanted to go back outside. I tried to find Monoprix but I couldn't find it, so I ended up getting groceries at Franprix. The route I took to get there was right around the Eiffel tower, along the Seine. The fact that it was Saturday combined with the great weather meant there were loads of tourists everywhere. I was kind of glad that I've been able to experience the Eiffel tower at night when it's deserted, and not just when it's crowded.

As I was going home with my groceries, this guy near the Eiffel Tower approached me and asked if he could draw my picture. He didn't seem particularly sketchy; he was young and he said he was an art student and that I didn't have to pay him. So he sketched me and we chatted but when he gave me the picture, I was mildly horrified. It was SO bad, it looked nothing like me at ALL! I don't even want to post a picture of it. I was kind of insulted that he'd drawn me so badly, and I told him so, but I think that might have hurt his feelings.

Oh, Le Pompiers Fou!

Translation: Oh, the crazy firemen!

This week has been interesting. Yesterday after class I met up with Emily and we walked all over the place, trying to find Marc Jacobs. I had looked up the adress and directions ahead of time, but we just couldn't find it! We never even found the street it was on, although we did successfully locate some tasty macaroons... I love the green pistachio kind! SO delicious! My facebook status says that I've discovered that French macaroons are the best food on earth.

Wednesday was my first day of babysitting and I did it again today, on Friday. Julia is almost 5 years old, and she's really cute. She reminds me of a brunette Madeline. Her mother wants me to speak to her only in English, but that is impossible since Julia speaks very little English. I actually feel like my French is improving more than her English, but who knows? It's 10 euros an hour, and it's a good feeling to know that I can make some extra spending money if I find something special I want.

Today, we did pretty much the same thing we did on Wednesday: puzzles, coloring, etc. I was admiring her grandmother's Chanel purse; it's exactly the kind I like, except the strap isn't long enough. The grandma was telling me how she's had it for 15 years and it lasts forever, and if I buy one, to be sure it's not a fake. I actually saw one when I went out with Emily that was 500 euros. I want to get something nice for myself, but I'd rather buy a nice black leather bag big enough for my books for around 50 euros. I don't feel like blowing all my money on a Chanel purse is the way to go, especially with this exchange rate. I don't babysit again until next Friday after class, but the mother needs me a lot the next week, when Julia is on vacation, which will be nice because I can make more money.

I have barely had any homework so far, but next week is going to be really busy. I have to present a case study on Thursday for Human Resource Management class with 4 other girls (my group is made up of all the blonde girls in the class, funnily enough). That wasn't so bad, but I learned today that I will also be presenting independently a project for Entrepreneurship class on Friday! So on the one hand, I'm trying to think positively, that it's good I'm getting these inevitable projects over with. But on the other hand, I'll be so busy since I have such a short amount of time to do the projects in. Also, I have to finish my painting for class on Tuesday. I'm painting a dress, but it has a long way to go.

Wednesday night, I accidentally ended up at a club with Serena! I was hanging out at her place late at night and we decided to walk over to the Champs Elysees, just to get out. We ended up running into 2 Brazilian girls who had randomly met a bunch of English guys, and they were all like, "Hey, do you know where the club is?" We walked with them for a minute, but then decided to go off on our own. But a minute later, we ran into a bunch of young French guys who were pompiers (aka firefighters) and they were like, "Hey, are you going to the discotheque?" So we were like, sure! why not?

So we got there, and it was supposed to be free before 1am because it was "student night" but we were too late. We didn't want to pay the 15 euro cover charge, plus 2 euro coat check so we decided not to go in. It didn't seem worth it. But as we were leaving, the pompier were like, oh why are you leaving? Serena explained in French that we thought it would be free. But it turns out, pompiers can get into clubs for free, so they were like, "hey, come on in with us!" It was great because they saved us 30 euros!

The club itself wasn't that great, which makes me glad we didn't have to pay. The music was techno, which I dislike and don't really know how to dance to. We ended up dancing for a while, didn't meet anyone particularly interesting, and went home. We didn't have class until noon the next day, so it didn't matter that we were out late.

And tomorrow I need to buy groceries and do homework.

Bonsoir, Monsieur Eiffel!

Not much has happened since Champagne but yesterday evening I intended to go up the Eiffel Tower with Serena. It was a spontaneous decision; we didn't head out until 9:30pm. We stopped a bunch of times along the way to take pictures, so by the time we got to the tower, tickets were no longer being sold. (It's about 5 or 6 euros). I wish I had a professional camera because my Kodak easyshare couldn't do the sight justice. It was stunning being up there so close, especially when the tower sparkles and glitters for 10 minutes every hour.

I have been looking for miniature Eiffel towers to bring home as souvenirs. I know Marissa told me she wanted one, and I think I want to get several to give to people. They sell them lots of places, and I've been looking around, comparing prices. I finally bought 3 last night beneath the Eiffel Tower, all different sizes. There are a bunch of African guys who sell stuff like that around the tourist areas. They sometimes hit on me and are always really agressive to get you to buy something, but last night, I found that bargaining with them got the prices cheaper than I had seen in any store anywhere else. Or rather Serena bargained with them because she's fluent in French. So I can cross one more thing off my list!

"Ah! I have tasted the stars!"

"Ah! I have tasted the stars!" is what Dom Pérignon is purported to have exclaimed when he first tasted the sparkling wine he had created.

"Champagne! In victory, one deserves it; in defeat one needs it."- Napoleon

"The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people." - Voltaire

"Champagne...the wine of kings, the king of wines."- Guy du Maupaussant

"Champagne is one of the elegant extras in life.”- Charles Dickens

"If you like Champagne, you’re full of fun and love the festive. If you don’t like Champagne, you don’t know what you’re missing." - Parade Magazine


This morning, I pried myself out of bed, got dressed, and sleepily ambled out of 68 Rue Boissiere and into the cold streets of Paris when it was still dark outside. I walked for 25 minutes through silent, deserted streets and crossed a bridge in order to rendezvous with a small group of weary adventurers who too had been lured out of their own warm beds. We shared a common passion: Champagne.

About 18 students met up at school at 7:45am and boarded a bus to the French region of Champagne. It took over 2 hours to get there, but the time seemed to pass quickly. I watched the scenery outside the window morph from the classic architechture of Paris into the neverending grassy fields of the French countryside. Eventually, we arrived at this small, rather dead looking town. All of the buildings looked really old and were covered in ivy, the streets were narrow, and everything was completely deserted. But when we passed a street labeled "Rue Dom Pérignon," I really felt like we were in Champagne!

This is the only place in the world that makes actual champagne, and French people are very protective of this. When Yves Saint Laurent created a perfume called Champagne, French champagne producers sued... and won. We first visited a small champagne production plant where the owner gave us a tour and explained to us (in French, but the tour guide translated) how his champagne is created.

To be called champagne, it has to come from three varieties of grapes: chardonnay, pinot noir, or pinot meunier. Chardonnay is a white grape and the pinots are red grapes. The drink can be comprised of 1 type of grape or a combination of the grapes. According to the owner, the best quality champagnes only contain chardonnay and pinot noir. Also, the best champagne comes from the middle of the Champagne region; the grapes are supposedly not as good further south.

All the grapes must be picked by hand; machines are not allowed to harvest the grapes. The owner told us that he used to pay his workers by the hour, but now he pays them by the kilogram, or something like that, because they work much harder and he can only use 20 workers instead of 30. According to him, a fast grape picker can earn 1000 euros in 10 days.

I thought it was interesting how red grapes were used to make champagne. Inside, all grapes are white, so it's the skin of the grape that gives the beverage its color. When the grapes are being pressed, it has to be done very fast to keep the clear color. Yeast and sugar are added to the grape juice. To create champagne and not just wine, the mixture is fermented twice. The first fermentation simply turns the mixture into white wine. The second fermentation adds the bubbles and makes it sparkle.

The bottles have to be turned twice a day. He used to turn the bottles by hand until he bought equipment that does it for him. In order to get rid of the yucky sediment that collects in the neck of the champagne bottle, the tip of the bottle is dipped in something that makes it freeze. Then the bottle is opened and the frozen part with the sediment is taken out. (I was a little hazy on exactly how this is done, but I think that's the gist of it.)


Before they developed this method for removing the sediment, people just avoided drinking it in their champagne. This is why champagne glasses have long stems. Those stems used to be hollow, and when people would sip their champagne, they would let the heavier sediment fall into the bottom of the glass. They would never finish the entire glass; they would only drink the good part.

The champagne is required to mature for a minimum of 15 months, although the longer it ages, the better. The way Rosé is made is simply by mixing red wine with sparkling white wine, for example 12% red and 88% white. Rosé is always such a pretty pink color; I WANT so badly to like it, but I don't like red wine very much and I can always taste it in my glass.

I was interested to learn that all the major champagne companies (Dom Pérignon , Moët et Chandon, Veuve Clicquot...) buy some of their champagne from local manufacturers. Demand is so great that it is impossible to produce it all themselves and they need to buy from local producers. He said that he sells half of his champagne to Moët et Chandon and sells the other half under his own name.

So after our tour was over, it was time for the tasting! I didn't expect for us to be given very much, but to my surprise, he brought out bottle after bottle and told us all about the different variations we were drinking. Apparently, he had expected 30 students to show up instead of 18, so we got to drink a lot more champagne than we expected. It was really funny because most of us hadn't had breakfast since we'd woken up so early, so it didn't take much before everyone was tipsy. Some people were flat out drunk. Everyone was giggling and taking pictures and knocking back glass after glass.

We were then able to purchase bottles of his champagne. (Maybe this was his strategy all along, to get us drunk so we'd buy more of his champagne...?) I bought a bottle of the kind I had tried that I liked best, the "Blanc de blanc." The champagne was surprisingly inexpensive; I had expected to pay about 30 euros for a bottle, but it was about half that.

We finally left the champagne factory and sobered up with lunch at some restaurant. It was pretty good; the salmon was yummy and the chocolate dessert was by far the best part. They served Bordeaux with our lunch but I could only manage a few sips since it was red wine.

Then we went to the Pommery champagne estate and took a tour there. Pommery is supposedly a well known brand of champagne, but I had never heard of it before. They have 20 million bottles of champagne housed in the estate, and they sell 4.5 million per year. It was a creepy place! They led us underground through a maze of chilly stone dungeons with moss growing on the walls, racks of aging champagne on either side of us. It was definitely haunted. As we were walking, someone said, "I feel like we're walking to Snape's Potion class" and that was definitely the vibe I got there. There was a lot of weird modern art there too. I learned that champagne bottles come in really huge sizes and can cost hundreds or thousands of euros. The biggest size at the Pommery was called the Salamanzar and it holds the equivalent to 12 normal bottles. All I could think about was trying to stuff one into my luggage.

Pommery gave us a tasting as well, but we only got one glass each. Their champagne was pricier than at the small place, but a lot of the girls, including me, bought a bottle of Pink Pommery POP because it was so pretty. They had told us about POP during the tour; it's a creamy type of champagne that is meant to be consumed with a straw; people drink it a lot at nightclubs. Oh, and a bunch of us swiped our champagne glasses from the Pommery tasting.



Finally, we ended the day with a tour of the Reims Cathedral. It was a little boring, as most cathedrals are, but we weren't there for very long. I think I liked it better than Sacre Coeur though, because we were allowed to take pictures inside. The gothic architechture was beautiful from the outside, and enhanced the creepy, spooky feeling of the day.

At last we headed back to Paris. I was exhausted and slept some of the way back. So I returned home with two bottles of champagne, and a newfound appreciation for and interest in this effervescent beverage. Now if only I could find a red wine I liked...

"My only regret in life is that I did not drink more Champagne.”"― last words of John Maynard Keynes

I Saw Bill Gates!

...on Wednesday. Isn't that weird and random?

I'm only mentioning it now because I wasn't sure before. Hold on, I'll explain...

It was Wednesday afternoon, and I was walking down Bosquet Avenue to the metro. I passed one building where it looked like there was some conference because people were sitting outside at tables. There was a small crowd of people gathered on the sidewalk. I casually walked around them and tried to proceed down the street but was stopped by two guys in suits who told me something in French. Their hand motions indicated that I couldn't walk down the sidewalk.

So I walked back to the crowd of people. I assumed that they, too, had been stopped while trying to walk down the street and were waiting to be allowed to walk. A woman said something to me in French but I didn't understand.

After about a minute of standing on the sidewalk, I thought, "This is stupid, why am I just standing here waiting when I have things to do??" I saw a guy walk into the street and around to avoid the sidewalk, and decided to do the same. As I was walking, I saw a group of security people rush out of the building, surrounding some guy who kept his head down. They got into a car and drove off.

The two guys wearing suits ran into a car as well and drove off. My first thought was, "Oh, maybe that was Sarkozy." I asked a woman what was going on and she said something in French. I told her I didn't understand and she said "Bill Gates."

I continued walking toward the metro, unsure. I figured the lady was mistaken, or maybe being sarcastic. Maybe she was even mocking me because I was American? When I got home, I logged onto Google News and typed in "Bill Gates, France" and "Bill Gates, Paris." Nothing showed up, so I safely assumed it hadn't been Bill Gates.

However, a few minutes ago I was in the kitchen and I heard the name "Bill Gates" coming from the tv news station my host family was watching. So I checked Google News today and sure enough, Bill Gates was in Paris on Tuesday and Wednesday!

I think it's funny that I actually did see him, especially since at the time I was kind of annoyed, like "Who do they think they are, closing down the sidewalk and telling me I can't walk here!"

Weekend Plans

I just got done emailing Uncle Eric and I figured I'd post a new message since I'm just sitting at home for the night.

I decided to relax tonight and take it easy because I have a sore throat and a runny nose and my legs are full of bruises from falling down the stairs. Oh, and the weather is terrible and rainy.

And after calling around, it seems like a lot of people are similarly sick (maybe it's going around?) and just staying home. I could go over to a friends house and just watch a movie but I don't even think I feel like doing that.

On Sunday I'm going on my first "cultural excursion" that I signed up for at school. We have to meet really early and a bus will take us to the Champagne region of France. I'm excited for this because I like champagne better than wine. I'll be sure to post lots of pictures.

This is what it said on our itinerary sheet:

Sunday, 3 February 2008

08h00 bus departs 31, ave Bosquet for Reims
10h45 Tour and tasting at Lallement
12h45 Group lunch at Le Jéroboam
14h45 Departure for Pommery Champagne House
15h00 Tour and tasting at Pommery
16h30 Visit Reims Cathedral
17h00 Depart for Paris
20h00 Arrive back in Paris, 31 avenue Bosquet


So it'll take 3 hours to get there? Fun.



**ATTENTION**: The following three-course lunch with champagne will be served on this trip:

Salade du Pêcheur: Saumon Fumé, Chair de Crabe, Crevettes Roses, Asperges, Agrumes.
(Fisherman’s Salad: Salmon, crab, shrimp, asparagus and citrus).

Pavé de Mignon de Porc rôti au Romarin
(Pork with side dish)

Rondeur Chocolatée et sa Tuile Croquante
(Chocolate dessert)


Sounds good to me! I love smoked salmon. I hope I can get a nice bottle of champagne while I'm there, if it's not too pricey. I'm partial to Veuve Clicquot but only because the company's CEO is the woman who wrote the book "French Women Don't Get Fat." Did you know that a drink can only be called champagne if it was made in this specific region of France? Otherwise it's just sparkling white wine.

And tomorrow will probably be bad weather as well, so I think I'd like to go to a museum. It will be crowded since it's Saturday so maybe one of the less popular ones?

I'm also thinking about what I'm going to do for spring break. It's a month away, the first 2 weeks of March, but everyone else seems to have plans already. It's actually nice for me, because since I have no plans, I've received lots of invitations and I can just listen to what everyone else is doing and pick which trip I want to join.

I'm really not interested in going with anyone who is doing a whirlwind tour, visiting, like, 1 country every 2 days. That sounds exhausting and I'd rather relax and spend a longer time exploring one place. Also, I'd prefer not to go with a big group because it's easier to travel with just 1 or 2 people; you're more flexible and independent when you don't have to deal with a lot of people's individual wants and needs. And I want to go with a financially likeminded person who's not going to want 5 star restaurants each night. Oh, and no tagging along with couples. How awkward!

My friend Emily suggested we go to Italy. That sounds good, because there's so much to explore, we can spend the 2 weeks taking our time making our way by train across the country. I do want to go to the south of France eventually, but the beaches may not be warm enough in March.