Thursday, September 20. I wake up before the alarm goes off - something about taking a "test" will do that! I arrive at the AF at 9:25 (25 minutes door-to-door using the Metro) and find the auditorium. (Because I am on the Metro early today, the Marche aux Fleurs is not yet open when I walk by so I actually notice two beautiful fountains that have been there all along!) This "testing" is something the AF apparently does to assess how their students, at each level, are doing relative to a standardized test, in this case the BULATs (Business Language Testing Service, which tests language ability in the working world). AF asked for volunteers to take it, and I thought it would be good to have the experience (although when I looked at the answer sheet with all those little boxes to fill in, I had second thoughts!).
BULATS. There are 50 minutes of oral comprehension, from understanding short conversations and taking down phone messages to listening to extended speech for detail and inference. And then 60 minutes of reading and language knowledge, from understanding notices, messages etc to reading long text for gist and specific information. Also, finding and correcting mistakes in text. It's like any other standardized test: the questions get harder as you go along. We can get our results after October 25.
Lunch. After the test, I prise open my little mind, set aside my prejudices and have lunch at a place on r. Madame called (heaven forbid!) Bread & Roses (although nothing will ever induce me to go into a place that has a Happy Hour sign). Fortunately, every one working there seems to be French, there are a lot of French people eating there, and the food is primarily French! I have quiche aux legumes, salade verte, and une tarte a la banane et creme brulee (which tastes for all the world like banana cream pie!). This little restaurant uses many organic ingredients and serves wonderful whole wheat bread.
Class. Having been thoroughly fortified, I return to AF for class at 1:30. Today Camille divides us into 4 groups then hands out 4 different French newspapers (Le Figaro, Le Monde, La Liberte and something else). First we have to skim through the paper, making a list of the various categories (national news, international news, european news, etc etc) and listing the articles under each section. Then, since each of the papers has an article about the proposed immigration laws in France (it's a big topic here too), we have to read the articles, write a summary, and try to figure out the political bent of each paper. There was a big discussion in the Assemble Nationale yesterday about the three proposals, and the article in Le Figaro ends with this comment: La discussion, tres vive, se poursuivait a minuit. !!! I was happy to see that I could actually read the newspaper and understand most of the articles but it's slow and I'm sure I'm missing a lot. We spend the entire class on the newspapers and I'm covered with newsprint by the end!
The Walk Home. After a string of beautiful days in Paris, I'm at a complete loss to describe this day, the most beautiful of all. It's in the high 60s by the afternoon, a (very) few little white clouds scattered around the edges, but overhead, the sky is a brilliant blue. The light is clear and warm in color and everything seems brighter and sharper than ever. So I walk home, slowly, soaking it all in, through the Jardin du Luxembourg, where the flowers are even more brilliant and everyone in Paris, it seems, is enjoying the day. The chairs are filled with little groups of friends, chattering away, or with solitary souls, reading or sunning themselves. School children by the hundreds are on the playground, riding the ponies, playing with balls. I love the flower beds here, where the colors of red, yellow/orange and blue/purple are combined so well, the colors I associate so strongly with French gardens. Unfortunately, my camera will not work. Linger by La Grotte de Luxembourg, an Italian-style fountain commissioned by Marie de Medici in 1630. Interesting factoid: the fountain had to be moved about 30 meters further into the park when Haussman flung his boulevards around Paris during his major urban renewal project.
Bookstores: Today, the route I'm walking takes me by lots and lots of bookstores. Some are very specialized. I could have spent a long time in one that had books only on architecture, urbanism, and construction. Thank god most of the books are in French but that doesn't stop me from looking at them. :) I actually buy two: one is a murder mystery by Jean Failler and the other is "Sidonie, ou le Francais Sans Peine," both of which look like something I can read. Because I'm writing every day in English and have only been reading English-language books, I'm not as "immersed" in French as I'd like to be, so I'm going to give these a shot. I stop in a children's book store (that also has very high-quality wooden toys and other such things) because I see in the window a book by Sibylle Von Olfers that I read as a child. The one in the window is in English, but I have a nice chat with the owner about it and she shows me another one of SVO's books, "The Story of the Root Children," which has been translated into French. (The books were originally written in German in the early 1900s). The illustrations in particular transport me back to an earlier time, like Proust with his madeleines.
On the Blvd St Germain, there a huge bookstore called Librairie Eyrolles. There are some bins outside the store, some with children's books, and I see a copy of Pat the Bunny in French. It's funny, but even with such simple language, I think it loses something in translation. There are some fascinating postcards on a rack outside, each with a different drawing of the Eiffel Tower. I turn them over, and the note on the back says "Ecole Simon Bolivar" so I wonder if they had an Eiffel Tower drawing assignment and the best ones got made into postcards! Tres cool.
Jugglers. I wander around the little streets between Blvd St Germain and the Ile de la Cite and emerge near the Square Viviani (near St Julien le Pauvre) and decide that I have never and will never again see Notre Dame illuminated so magnificently. There are 4 jugglers in the Place du Parvis in front of the cathedral, all young men with a punk look about them, so I park myself on one of the stone walls to watch and bask in the late afternoon sun. I can't take my eyes off of one of them in particular. He is not really juggling so much as "handling" (the way a Harlem Globetrotter might handle a basketball) what appears to be a glass ball (but which is in fact highly polished acrylic) about the size of a very large orange. The ball perfectly reflects the cathedral and the sky, only upsidedown, and the images stay perfectly still no matter where or how fast he moves it. I am completely hypnotized!
My cell phone rings and it's Adrien, inviting me for dinner. I'm to meet him in front of 139 Blvd Voltaire (don't ask!) between 7:30 and 7:45. So it's quickly up the 63 stairs where I find a note from my GG (that would be "Gorgeous Greek") landlord, Christos, letting me know that he has "un courrier des USA" for me. It's a big envelope that Eleanor has used to forward some mail to me. So I visit with them (Christos, Sophie and their son) for a few minutes, and Christos draws a map so I can find a place that rents DVDs (also the closest Monoprix - very important!). While I'm in my apt (for all of about 5 minutes!) Alison Lane-Reticker Gaddis calls. She and Gene will be in Paris for a couple of days so we arrange to meet for dinner Saturday evening. I have a moment of panic when I can't find my wallet (hidden in the depths of my back pack), change my clothes and throw myself out the door.
Metro from Hotel de Ville to Nation, then change and get off at Charonne in the 11eme. I'm not familiar with this part of Paris, it's much more "real" than the Centre Ville. My phone rings and it's Adrian wondering where I am ("I'm in front of #167, Ok, now I'm in front of #165 so I'll see you in a minute!"). He had been worried that he would be late, but instead it's I who is.
Bouchon et Bistro. We have dinner at a little place in Bercy. En route, Adrian points out the Ministere de l'Economie des Finances and du Budget (a sprawling but not unattractive new building) and the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, a huge performance space for sports, concerts etc. Bouchon & Bistro is at 44 Blvd de Bercy and is only open Monday through Friday for lunch (12 to 2:30) and dinner (a partir de 19h). It's a restaurant you would never find unless you know someone in Paris. I have emince de volaille a la provencale and Adi has cuisse de porc and orders a lovely bottle of wine (Bordeaux). We share moelleux (which I can neither pronounce nor spell - I just looked it up) chocolat avec creme de marrons for dessert. The food is excellent. On the walk back to the car, we see a train leaving the little Gare de Paris-Bercy (near the Gare de Lyon). As I've never heard of this train station, Adi explains that it is only for overnight trains to Italy. Not a bad way to travel. Adi drives me home (tres galant as he lives in exactly the opposite direction). It's fun driving around Paris at night (especially when someone else is doing the driving!), but finding a place to park anywhere is un veritable cauchemar.
Pedometer: 11,547.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment