Ma Vie Quotidienne~My Daily Life

In case you were wondering, not every day is galettes and gallivanting. But as of now, I am still easily charmed by my life here, like my daily métro commute and my neighborhood. The cliché image of a French person toting a baguette? Not cliché, 100% true. In the morning, just about 1/3 people has a baguette peeking out of their bag, having just come from their preferrred boulangerie to pick up a baguette (or 2 or 3, which is also common) for the family.

Turns out that my preferred bread bakery is also the favorite of my host parents, so that's good. This house gives them quite a bit of business. The bakery is just on the corner, across the street, and its run by a woman from Normandy, who is a French force of nature.

Below are some snippets of the things I see/do every day, or nearly that often, to give you a glimpse of what my life here is actually like:

My kitty friend in the café down the block. She was very cooperative while I photographed her.

I can see this beautiful old church from the living room window; my roommate and I already call it "our church."

What a comfort! The Gallo family made it all the way to France! If the price weren't in Euros, I could very well be at the CVS in Ann Arbor. I found this at the Monoprix (convenient grocery store) 10 seconds away from my front door. I'm there all the time anyway

A men's shoe store down the street, that I detest, because I always mistake it for a charming wine store. I blame the lights.

I spend quite a bit of time with these jokers, Diarra and Anne. Here, we are actually walking to lunch, but we stopped for muffins along the way...Gluttony just seems right in Paris

The view from the Madeleine church, a block away from the Middlebury Center where I take classes. This was a day when the sun finally decided to show its face. Not bad, right?

My French parents, at our first family dinner. My host mom is a great cook, and her husband is an excellent wine-pourer.
 

Additional pictures of "The Crew," doing what we do best: going out to bars and clubs absorb the French culture.

That's a glimpse of my life so far, but today I had a great experience where I felt like an insider, rather than the obvious American, for once. While entering the Métro after some window shopping with friends, a petite Asian woman with a baby strapped to her front muttered to herself as she came up the stairs and onto the street, "I am so f*cking lost right now.." I chuckled and was about to go on my way when I realized that I knew exactly where I was (just stops away from my métro stop, so I know the area) and could be of help.

Knowing how nice it is to hear some English when you need it most, I asked her where she was going (Bourse--she was entirely on the wrong line, not just at the wrong stop) and then led her back down to the trains, and because I had little else to do except shop for food and cook dinner, I rode the trains with her to her destination, helping her use the turnstiles and make a transfer. She thanked me profusely, but it brightened my day to realize that even when I mess up/get lost/pretty much live in bewilderment/buy cheese instead of yogurt by accident/have wordreference.com open as a permanent tab on my computer, I am not completely incompetent. It's the little things, right?

The Green and the Grey

Hello again! I am into my third week in Paris and it is still a whirlwind of activity (although the weekend saw a bit of a break in the actual sightseeing/doing real things, comme d'habitude). One of the sad things right now is that the weather is pretty gloomy; rain is pretty much a daily thing, and the grey sky is a given, but lately it is a snowy mess. This is unusual here, so everyone was very excited at first, but as my friend Caroline pointed out, snow is basically just really cold rain, and I am over it.

But this only makes all the greenery more noticeable! One of the things I love is the abundance of parks, gardens, and elements of nature that you just stumble upon here. Amid all the overwhelming city stuff, there is always an oasis nearby, and this week I made it my mission to find some of them.

*Another post with more pictures will come soon, because I found a beautiful park while I was running in my neighborhood, and didn't have a camera on me. Now, there is too much snow/slush to run again (also I am lazy), so it may be a while.

1. Jardins du Luxembourg

2. The Seine! This is the bridge of lovers' locks, where couples bind themselves together metaphorically and toss the key into the river.

3. Parc Monceau

 Love the little guy playing to the right of the statue.

4. Cool statues. Love the ones of the women tending to the male statues. Even the statues got their own statues; now that's classy.

Classes have started at the Middlebury Center (classes at the Sorbonne-Paris III won't start until the 28th), so I will have just slightly less wandering time. Because of the cold weather, I have been on a museum binge, especially now that I can use my student ID card. It usually will either get me in free, or at a reduced rate.

Below: Jardins des Plantes, Paris's Botanic Gardens

 The "Secret Garden" just off the Place des Vosges, where 3 of us stepped in puddles one after the other. Stupid Americans. I was one of them.

 The beautifully symmetric Place des Vosges, home of Victor Hugo, which is now a museum.

 Les jardins du musée Carnavalet, a fabulous--or fabulously overwhelming--museum of French history housed in two of the neighborhood's beautiful mansions.

Below: Les jardins du Musée Bourdelle, the workshop/museum/gardens of sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, who studied under the famed Rodin.

Hope you all stay warm and cozy. With my host mother's help, I discovered last night that the bizarre contraption in the kitchen is a water heater, so today I bought a box of tea sachets, and now I am no longer chilly. There are benefits to braving the snow, like coming across happy surprises:

FoodPornDaily: Paris Edition

I have discovered that looking at food is nearly as satisfying as eating it (though I do a fair share of the latter, too), so enjoy!

1st crêpe! NOM NOM NOM

Oh, hello cheese. You want to destroy my health, you say? GO FOR IT.

Fauchon's éclair caramel au beurre salé. Costs about a billion euros--worth it.

Stacks on stacks on stacks of pancakes at a Starbucks. So random. And every Starbucks has different food items for sale, always different, always amusing.

Pomme de terre=Potato. These quirky pastries may be my favorite edible thing I have seen here so far; they make me so happy.

French ladies, kickin' their feet up. These make me smile every time

And, prepare yourselves for the most gigantic dog I have ever seen in my life. His body says chillin', but his eyes say FEED ME.

Thank god they're pretty, because so far I have found cupcakes here to be SUPREMELY lacking

Love randomly finding fountains/farmers markets in the middle of the city...don't love spending $$$ on cheese every time this happens...

DEXTER cupcakes!! Note the little vial of "blood"

Found a shop dedicated entirely to éclairs while walking through Le Marais (3e) the other day

Muffins! A taste of home, made better by being stuffed AND topped with nutella!

Hope you enjoy the pictures as I explore Paris, one bite at a time. This city is the stuff of foodie dreams. Next thing on my list: fondue! I really need to chill on the crêpes, though I did just pick out a new place I want to try. Before coming here, I never appreciated a savory crêpe (galette). No longer.