It's fall in Paris. The leaves are changing colors in the parks and on tree-lined streets. Despite the best efforts of the street cleaners to keep the sidewalks free, the leaves keep falling. In the Garden of Luxembourg, the largest and most cared for park in Paris, the ground is littered with crumpled brown leaves and round, hard chestnuts from what seems to be Paris' favorite tree. Along big important streets they are carved into square shapes, for a tidy, formal, and very geometrical look. In the summer they are great for shade, and in the fall they provide street vendors with something roast and sell to tourists. Kids enjoy picking them up and throwing them around, and I like having something to kick absentmindedly as I walk to class.
The sky has been getting greyer, too, and there's been a lot of that light-but-constant rain that I saw so much of in Oregon.
For the past couple of weeks I've mostly been going to classes and hanging out with my Sarah Lawrence friends here at the Cité. There are 6 of us living at the Fondation Americaine, and it's starting to feel like a little family. We often get together in the evenings to cook dinner or drink tea in one of the little kitchens that are located on every floor. We've even had a couple of crêpe nights, (which in my opinion are really just a reason to eat a lot of nutella), and I'm starting to get pretty good at flipping crepes by tossing them in the air. None of them have gotten stuck to the cieling yet, but there's always a chance...
Oh, and I almost forgot about the cabbage! Thank you all for all of your wonderful suggestions. I finally finished off Mr. Cabbage in a stir-fry at the beginning of this week. He got put into soups, fry-ups, salads, and whatever else I could squeeze him into. I still can't believe how well it lasted. It's been almost a month since I bought the thing, but every time I went down to the fridge it was still firm and leafy-green. No wonder cabbage is what people eat during famines in cold, northern places. It lasts forever!
For classes, I finally ended up taking a print-making class, a painting class, a seminar at Reid Hall called "Multicultural France," and, of course, French. The painting class is in a little Atelier about 45 min. away from the Cité, with a model who comes in daily and 2 still-lifes set up for students to paint at any time. It's a crowded studio, with unfortunately many Americans as students, but the people are nice and I think I can do pretty much whatever I want there.
My print-making class is a ton of fun. The work is meticulous and takes a lot of patience but the ambiance in the studio is great. The students are mostly older, and very nice. I've made friends with a woman who is also a beginner like myself, and whose children both live in the US. The leaders of the studio are really the ones who give it it's character though. The head boss, Joelle, is an older lady who is very loud, opinionated, and has a rather dirty mouth. She doesn't think twice about swearing if she finds the coffee cups sitting dirty by the sink, or chewing out her poor assistant, Nicolas, for almost anything that isn't to her liking. She isn't really mean, though, she just doesn't worry about trying to be polite. This can sometimes put everyone a little on edge, but on the whole it's quite hilarious.
Besides classes, I have had a chance to do a few activities on my own. I've gone twice to this enormous flea market in the North of Paris, where they sell everything from antiques to the latest fashion knock-off. It's crowded, but fun. Last week I went with Katie(from Mills), who's taking a break from school to spend a year living and working in Paris! She's very courageous; I wouldn't have had the guts to go without a program.
The week before last the mother of the two boys I tutor in English invited me to dinner, which was very kind, and it ended up being a huge feast lasting until 11:30 or so at night.
Hmm... Well, I've got to go to class, but I love you all and will write again soon!
