past 2 days

Yesterday was interesting, I got off work early but had a little bit of stress in my life so I came home and took a nap. Alwin wanted me to go over to St Sulpice for a book fair, all of the vintage booksellers I guess you could say come together once a year for this huge exposition ... there were thousands of books from the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s. I saw a book signed by Victor Hugo and a first edition of Lolita. It was incredible. Over tea afterward though, once we realized Alwin doesn't like Tolstoy and Ingrid doesn't like Kafka relations became very strained. The rest of the night was awkward. Luckily he will be gone for a week so he can rethink that opinion.

So, then I came home and opened my huge windows and sat in front on my hundreds of years old chair (probably) eating hummus in the dark and observing the night. The clouds are perpetually pink because of the city lights. I tried to think what this could symbolize or what it could be a metaphor for ... Sara Jarman told me that she is also so homesick in Moscow and is attempting to cure it by writing love poetry.

Today I went to lunch with everyone in the office, it was fun. I sat by Raymond under his insistence, he's the boss who scares the crap out of me ... but he was nice and I realized that I can now hold normal conversation in French and not look like an idiot. Raymond told me about which wines should be refridgerated and which shouldn't, also that it's best to put wine in a carafe 2 hours before it is served. The guy next to me let me keep taking bites of his TarTar or whatever it's called ... raw beef. It was so delicious but everyone kept making fun of me because I'm a vegetarienne and made a big deal about getting my pasta without ham. Whatever.

Went to the amazing bookstore again tonight ... I really think I almost collapsed from overenthusiasm. They had the version of Eugene Onegin I have really really really really wanted and can not find ANYWHERE, 2 volumes translated by Nabokov with extensive commentary ... gah. I almost cried. I bought a great book of poems I need to help me write my paper on the Gates of Hell. I think I would travel to Paris just to go to that bookstore.

A ton of pictures.

Here are a bunch of pictures of things recently. Please see each subheading for description.

That would be moi at Grand Trianon, Versailles. The wealth that went into this place is unbelievable ... to think that Louis xiv had so much money he could build this place "to take light meals" is just disgusting. I couldn't even afford to see it, I had to climb over a wall. Sad.


Grand Trianon



Notre Dame Cathedral. Many of you may know this as the setting of the popular Disney movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame, (we won't talk about how I had crushes on certain animated characters in that movie when I was little,) or of the perhaps lesser known novel of the same title. This is also where Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emporer in 1804. (Click here.)



...and there he is, our favorite military political leader.




This is possible my favorite sculpture at the Louvre, "Psyché ranimée par le baiser de l'amour" by Antonio Canova. Sorry I'm not sure what the English title is. You could wordreference that if you don't speak French I guess.




A nice candid of me learning about mideval castles at the Louvre.




A little romance in front of the Eiffle Tower.




In rememberence of Jim Morrison ... everyone wrote on the sepulchre closest to his grave because there was a little gate around his tombstone.




My favorite song by The Doors ...




There he is.




There's nothing to be said about this one.




Me, Lani & Lauren playing in the big fountain in Amsterdam.




Antics.




Iamsterdam.




Like my coat?




Catching up on a little sleep while Lani and Lauren were looking at boring political buildings that political science kind of people like.




Lani, so excited.




Haribo gummy things, so delicious.




Gahaha ... Lauren and Vladimir. I found this in my iPhoto after I uploaded the pictures from Lauren's iPhone. Heheheheh.

Anyway, there you go. Now you are all updated. I'm incredibly homesick so I like to think everyone is voraciously reading my blog and missing me. :(

french lesson

This week has been très bien (TRAY-byen) because I have had minimal amounts of difficult work and also the opportunity to go to the Musée Rodin (Moo-say ro-DAN) to buy some books I need for my research paper on La Porte l'Enfer (Luh port lawn-FAIR.) Some people call this work of sculpture The Gates of Hell. I look forward to writing this paper and spent awhile admiring the huge sculpture in the garden.
Today, I awoke and came to work at 930 am. I walked over to a foyer (FOY-ay) to give them a cheque (CHE-CK) to pay for a room for a girl who will be coming to work with us from BYU this friday. On my way back, I took a little detour to a vintage jewelry store where I bought a turquoise ring. Then, I came back for un break (UHN brayke) for lunch. I took my book over to a little cafe (CAFF-ay) where I ate a crepe with champignons (SHAM-peen-yon) and some tea. Now I have returned to work and have been doing some very important work on gmail (jshee-MEHL) and facebook (fayce-BOOHK.) Tomorrow Stephanie comes into town from BYU and I will have another intern here with me to take some of the workload off. This weekend I have no plans and thus nothing to report as for future activities. Au revoir. (OH-rrvWAH)

things

many things going on recently ... thursday night i accompanied my good friend alwin from the office to a lecture at the holocaust museum, which was women telling their stories of life after concentration camps. it was extremely interesting but 3 hours long. afterward, we met up outside with all of alwin's other german babe friends ... luckily once you meet one of them you meet all of them. afterward we went to buy some drinks from a store in chinatown (apparently they are cheapest there,) where i purchased two coca lights. we then went up to alwins little apartment in montparnasse. interesting night ... as more and more beer was ingested (not be me) it became more and more interesting. started out talking about nazism, then east germany, then the boys pulled up some east german propoganda songs on youtube and laughed hysterically for awhile, then we pulled up some videos of sarkozy saying stupid things, then we discussed politics. alwin: "we don't like obama because he doesn't support global warming. think about it: first, the netherlands will overflow and germany will have nice warm beaches and no one will want to go to the mediterraean! once it gets to my town then we will support obama." later: "i hate nature, theres not places there to buy beer or cigarettes." etc etc. don't worry family: none of these activities influenced or injured me in any way.

anyways, friday night i took the train up to brussels to once again hang out with L&L for the weekend and go to the LDS temple up in The Hague. We woke up at 5am and took a bus with the church group. It was a very cute town, Lauren of course wanted to see the international justice court and i in the war criminals so we stopped by there as well. our friend sinoui told us he would drive us up to amsterdam to spend the afternoon - about an hour drive. a really great day. we walked around, ate some falafel, tried to get into the van gogh museum but got there too late, then hung out at the big park for the rest of the evening. there was some eurobabes skateboarding, kids playing on swings joyfully, naked babies swimming in the fountain, lovers snuggling on the warm grass. it was lovely. we ate pizza for 5 euros and waded in the waters. me and lauren really, REALLY wanted to swing on the rad tire swing but the little kids wouldnt get off. we thought it might look creepy that we were standing there staring contemptively for so long that we decided to go watch the shirtless male skateboarders for awhile.
we left around 7. the drive back to brussels was incredibly beautiful. me and lauren were unfortunately at the height of our hyped up state one often experiences briefly after going without enough sleep. we got back to brussels, ate some frites, then thought we saw a girl crying blood and a man dressed in a bear suit peering out at us from behind a building.
needless to say ... time for bed. im put up amsterdam pictures later.

AHHHH

So I'm at work avoiding work, because apparently now that all of the fun is out of the way I've got some real hard stuff ... i.e. I have to call people and set up appointments to go visit them, by myself, in french ... TERRIFYING.

Anyway, I made a grand discovery on rue de Rivoli yesterday and spent the rest of the day depressed because I had no one to tell about it. So here it is, loyal blog readers: GALIGNANI BOOKSTORE:

This was the first English bookstore established on the continent (yes) in 1520 after the invention of the printing press. It has incredible collections of both English and French books. They have a huge literature section, separated by country of origin (i.e. Italian literature, Polish literature, Indian literature, French literature, etc etc,) with many english translations to choose from of each. This is paradise for a Comparative literature major.
Also, they have a section for Everymans library editions, which of course we all prefer ... I bought the Divine Comedy, hardback, Everymans, FOR 20 EURO. That's right. CHEAPER than in the United States, where it would probably be something like 29.95.

The layout of the store is so rad, you have to climb these little ladders to get to books on the higher shelves, and they have this area in the back that is like a huge half circle, with an upper level and a lower level. You can kind of see it in this picture in the back:

And this is the view looking down from that top level toward the everyman's library collection:

Wow, just Wow. I could spend hours here. You guys seriously, the books are cheap and all the editions are pretty (no Penguin classics, no Barnes and Noble editions,) great prices, great translations. Though they close at 19h00 rather than the other English bookstore WHSmiths a few doors down closes at 19h30, it is a sad competition. Galignani has such a better selection. Great place to buy a book to take across the street to the Tuileries and read by the fountain.
AHHHHHHHHH

Sejour a la compagne

Today for work I went to a little country house about an hour south of Paris owned by the organization. The work was backbreaking--I got a tour of the house, played a piano that hasn't been touched for 50 years, got a tour of the herbs growing in the garden, listened to Yann play his accordian, drank tea made from the sage in the garden, and took a nap in the sun.







Plant growing through the floor. When I noticed it, the woman passing said, "c'est beau, n'est-ce pas?"




Yann playing his accordian. His father gave it to him when he was a little boy, right before he was tortured and killed by the Germans after trying to escape the prison camp (his father.) Yann is my favorite of the office. He takes care of me. I was feeling a little sick in the car on the way home and curled up into my prefered fetal position in the passenger seat. "Oh, ma pauvre petite Lola," says Yann. He always calls me "petite Lola" or "la petite americaine."
















So, as you can see the life of a young
intern/student is a rough one.
And having run out of pretty blue euros long ago, I've decided to go Crime and Punishment style and have tea for every meal.



The napoleon mug in action.

-- Post From My iPhone

Visitors

Leilani and Lauren came down from Belgium this weekend for a little visit. However hard it was to rip myself away from my Napoleon books, I'm glad they came. I'm not really kidding about that.

On Sunday we went to the Louvre.

That would be me and Lani getting excited to see some art.

We only had an hour and a half, unfortunately. Besides the huge paintings of Napoleon's coronation by Jean-Jacques David, this was definitely the highlight:

That is one of my favorite sculptures--"Cupid & Psyche" by Antonio Canova. Great picture taken by Lani.

Of course after the museum we went to the bookstore where I bought this:

No one else is allowed to use it.
We also spent a lot of time outside the Louvre in the Jardin de Tuileries, one of my favorite places in Paris. Very relaxing. As you can see here I was lucky and got one of the reclining chairs.L&L left yesterday morning and I miss them.

In other news, turns out the German babe that also interns at my office is studying Comparative Literature in Berlin. We discuss literary theory in Franglais over filing papers. Just kidding. Kind of.