I make love to zees nutella ccrAhpes

 

I keep being asked to write another blog, but I don’t have many pretty things to say.  As Erin said it, the honeymoon stage with Paris is over and now I’m stuck with the bastard.  Just kidding, I love it of course, but a couple annoyances have started to settle in. 

School’s officially started and we pretty much have school 9-5 everyday so that by the time we get out it’s darkish and everything seems to close around 6 so it’s really impossible to get groceries and school supplies.  I went to this art supply store at 3 pm on a Saturday and it was closed, so it’s going to be fun to try to figure out how to get some special rulers I need for pretty much all of my classes.  And thus far my classes have been me and the other spring program fashion students sitting around 80% of the time as the teachers help the regular students with their already started projects.  I hope this changes soon, or they at least let us leave if we don’t have anything.  Thursdays we don’t have class til 2, and it was beautiful and sunny and it was so hard to pry myself from the city and go back to school.  But the room we spend most of our time in is really open and bright with curved windows, so it’s not such a bad place to hang out in.

The first project we’re starting on is a jacket and I plan to make a velvet one.  I got the material from that fabric store with 6 floors, but the material I really wanted had run out, it was like a persimmon dark pomegranty orange (I thought I should have something orange since that’s my school color), but I had to settle for a dark green.  The cashier lady at the fabric store gave me back money that wasn’t even euros, and I’m starting to feel a little bit of the French snootiness from a few people.  The guy I bought a cell phone from said in perfect English that he didn’t speak English, which is good that it forces me to speak the language, but I would’ve liked to ask a lot more questions concerning the plan, and I had the sneaking suspicion he did actually speak English.  A couple of my friends who are more obviously and proudly American have had much worse happen to them.  A few guys came up to us as we were leaving a bar last night and stated that they were going to come home with us and go to bed with us.  I thought they were just being cheeky jackasses, but they weren’t kidding.  These boys make me feel not so bad about stuffing my face with nutella crepes everytime I get the chance.

But it’s really still all just very much fun.  We’ve met a couple fun locals and we have a quasi regular bar we go to.  We went dancing at a bar that was just an incredible place to hang out.  There were two floors, and the basement had this really cool compartmentalized dungeon/wine cellar feel with ribbed vaulted ceilings.  I finally saw the Eiffel tower, it was at night of course because I never see the light of day, but the light show is pretty breathtaking, so it was pretty fun to see at night.  We were standing by a carousel, so the music from the carousel was playing as we stared up at the massive lit hardware.  I half expected it to growl and start crawling around like a spider like a monster from an old b-movie.

Another unexpected thing about Paris is that I don’t want to go shopping here at all.  The style is so boring!  It’s bland and a touch tacky.  I have no idea where I’m going to find souvenirs.  The lingerie looks like ornate pastries; if strawberry shortcake were to wear underwear, she’d shop in Paris.  And part of the reason I haven’t seen many cute guys is that the style is kind of the “Bill Gates” look.  A guy took it as a major compliment that I thought he was similar to Eric Forman from That 70s Show.  And the French always tell me how the French wear their clothes or what they wear and how I should do it too so I don’t stand out as being American.  But it’s so boring!  If the sun’s not shining, I have to wear some color to cheer the gloomy days up.  It’s funny though, with all this bland clothing around, I haven’t ever been so inspired to sketch and sketch and sketch out ideas.

We get to see a couple fashion shows in fashion week!  And a few of us will be able to do a mini “stage” (internship) with a couple companies where I think we just help in the showroom after the fashion shows and help with fittings and what not.

I went to the Louvre today, museums are open on Sundays, and toured the Napoleon apartments.  Kings and Queens lived there before it was a Museum so they have these rooms like what they used to be.  It looks like a set for a Marie Antoinette movie.  I wanted so bad to be dressed up like a cupcake and playing cards over clever banter in the drawing room.  There was a chandelier as big as a house.  And this really long dining room table that would be perfect for our family thanksgiving, there were 46 seats.  I could just imagine us all in there, each of us having a servant with a powdered wig at our beck and call.

I’ve gone to a couple flea markets.  The one I went to this past Saturday was a square mile.  But don’t get too excited because it was all either new kinda cheap stuff that was made in china or way too pricey antiques where I thought I might get bit by the vendor if I even touched anything.  But they had good boots and shoes for good deals, I even saw the boots I bought a week before for half the price.  I need to collect shoe sizes of people for souvenirs.

The other flea market was smaller and better, but I think I still prefer Seattle’s Fremont market.  I did play translator between a French vendor and an Italian bargainer, though.  I thought that that would maybe translate into a reduction of the price she originally gave me for this beautiful blue vintage dress I had shown interest in, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.  I don’t think Paris is really known for their flea markets.  I do see so many books stores and books stands everywhere though – too bad they’re all in French.  And too bad I’m not much of a reader.

Food report:

I was really craving a pork chop with some white mushroom sauce when the girls and I were looking for a place to go out and my prayers pretty much got answered, but instead of a porkchop it was a vealchop with pasta on the side.  And an endive salad.  They’re big on endives here.  It was scrumptious, and not too pricey.  There are 20,000 restaurants in Paris.    So many things are overwhelming about this city for only being here for 4 and a half months.

I’m also officially addicted to nutella crepes.  Nothing better than melted nutella on a buttery crepe on a freezing Parisian night.  My roommate Amy and I will get one as we’re walking home and completely forget how freezing we are as we’re engulfed in eating the chocolaty goodness.

I go through tubs of cheese like nobody's business.  You wouldn't believe the cheese sections they have in the regular grocery store!  It's like whole foods, except everything's under 4 euro.  It's absolutely magnificent, even though I'm kinda intolerant of cheese.  Except here, the cheese hasn't bothered me as much?  And it opens up a whole new world for what kind of combinations to put on a sandwich.  Anyway, they look like powdered little cakes, and I have loved everything I've tried.  I watch people select theirs and if someone looks like they would maybe have the same taste as me (I judge through clothing, demeanor) I'll pick the same thing they did.  I am such an observer since I can't speak much.  I was telling Amy that we'll be really good at telling people's minds by the time we get back home since we guess 75% of what people are saying to us or trying to express.

I also had a bite of my friend’s tiramisu and it was the best tasting tiramisu I’ve ever had in my life.  And the presentation of the desserts are impeccable.  We went to this café that served its cocktails with sparklers.  My cocktail was deemed “the condom” and it was served in a siringe.  All the names of the cocktails were English named and really grosse and didn’t sound like anything you wanted in or around your mouth, let alone in your bloodstream.

On my run along the Seine river today I passed the Notre Dame, an area where people parked their big beautiful boats, I went through a tunnel where a boy my age was enthusiastically playing some good harmonica, and I ran through a nice park with different sculptures and plenty of stairs to run up and down.  It was a good run.

Now that it’s warming up some (maybe like a degree, the cold weather makes me feel like a wet hen) there’s been a couple accordion players on the metros.  It lifts the spirits.  I miss my scandalli so much.  My French friends find it nerdy and corny that I play the accordion.

…So yeah, nothing exciting as of late.  Sorry to disappoint.  I wish I had an awesome story complete with a cigarette, beret, and ze pepe le pew accent but it hasn't happened yet.  The French people I'm friendly with just laugh and think that my french is cute and pathetic, pretty much, but every time I have a few I'm a little more courageous to have a go at speaking it.  It'd be so much better if I lived with a family to learn the language!  Not speaking french has really limited my interaction with people and thus my lack of stories.  School is 9-5 so it’s hard to do anything in such a short window of time.  Me and my roommate are getting really antsy to have more adventures, we’ve been looking into day trips like a wine tour in Reims in the Champagne region, and if I don’t have anything going on the weekend after fashion week we may go to Milan for the weekend.  Although I’d really like to see some European countryside after being in the city. And we missed Yves St. Laurent's public viewing of his art collection that's going on auction by one day!  Je ne sais pas quoi de faire.

So hopefully I'll have more to disclose next time, but here's a blog for those who have been asking for it.

Until next time…

Happy Valentines from the city of Love

I wish I grew up here.  I wish that all you guys; family, friends, could just be transplanted here, and we all spoke French and had our own little community.  It just feels right here, that people just know how to live.  They’re so loving with each other.  I love how friends kiss each others cheeks when they greet.  I saw these two girls about 13, with looks of being drunk on happiness, one leaning into the other sitting, swinging on a chain of one of the fences that border street corners.  They have less of a need of “space”, they like affection.  And I love how cute couples are with eachother.  It’s just very sweet and romantic.  They’ll stop by a wall of a sidewalk and just talk, kiss a little, and look at each other so that you can really tell they enjoy eachother’s company 100%, no distractions.  Sometimes it’s gross, though, like this couple I saw the other day who were eating each others faces AS they walked down the street…or the couple directly above my apartment who very vocally go at it all night long, and sometimes wake me up at 3 in the morning.  And if you know me, I’ve slept through a gunshot before.  It takes quite some noise/disturbance to wake me up.  It’s disgusting.  Anyway, haha, Paris just has got it going on.  It’s all very local, there’s not many big chains, and the fresh local stuff is usually the cheapest.  In the supermarket, most recycled “green” (vert) things are cheaper.  And for a big city, it seems really safe.  I don’t hear police or ambulances very often, and I’ll see girls who are like 14 years old hanging out around town at around 11-12 pm. People don’t really drink to get drunk, there’s not so much of a bar scene, but rather just chill cafes where you go at night with a friend or two.  And girls actually cover themselves up and dress for the weather when they go out at night.  And kids will take the metros by themselves.  For being a big city, people seem to be looking out for each other, and they’re just pretty responsible for themselves.  I'm in love with this city, it'll be my date for valentines -- the whole city, all of it.  The thing is, I want to be a part of it!   I almost feel like a ghost.  A third party observing and being fascinated with the living.  Whenever I make my presence known (with my awfully accented French) it’s always throws em a little off kilter, too.  It’s embarrassing.  I’m going to be so nice to any future exchange students and invite them to go do things because the language barrier makes it so hard to meet locals!

A couple days ago we went to a sewing fair type thing that had an exposition on Haute Couture.  We went with our Haute Couture teacher, Muriel Ivagnes, who speaks very little English who worked for Nina Ricci Haute Couture for 29 years.  I forgot to put my battery in my camera, so I couldn’t take pictures of the delicately sturdy wedding dresses we saw!  Usually every Haute Couture fashion show ends with a wedding dress, it’s the grand finale, and we saw I think three.  They looked like they were made out of spiderwebs and feathers, they were a little avante garde for my taste, but definite works of art.  It's kind of mind blowing and overwhelming.  We saw a video on the whole production process of the latest chanel haute couture collection.  I don’t know how these ladies do it.  It’s a sweatshop even in the highest end of clothing making.  They only make about 10 garments, but it still forces them to only get a couple hours of sleep every night in order to get it all done in time.  They’re hands are like machines, and every bit of it has to fit like second skin so it feels like you’re wearing nothing even when you have 15 meters of fabric in a dress.

In my pattern making class, my prof who specializes in costume brought in some original 18^th century clothing that common people would wear that she just acquired.  She asked a volunteer to try it on, so that she could take pictures of it on a body, and I was the only one who raised my hand.  They made clothes that fit so much better back then.  The seams are a completely different placement than what we have on our clothes right now, they curve with the curves of the body, giving it a much better fit.  Even with all the fabric, I really liked the way it fit.  It made me have shape.  After that she taught us how to make a “ruff”, those tutu type dog collars people like queen Elizabeth and such would wear around their neck.  My teacher is so cute, I love her, she’s a blonde soft lady, and she says “cloz-es” for “cloths”.  Imagine in a sweet cute French accent: “Zey would wear zeir clozes like zis”  …So fricken endearing.

 And today we went to Premiere Vision, that textile show that has fabrics for designers to use in their collections two years from now.  Awesome.  But they’re not too keen on students, they like the buyers, and this was the bitter end of it and the last day.  Still, I pushed my luck.  Just to make things clear, this is a place where buyers from companies can order/buy no less than a large quantity minumum of yardage/meterage.  I figured, it’s the last day, those who are going to buy have already bought, and we just got an assignment to make a purse by the end of the year, so I asked a sales rep from a leather company if they had any extra stock, and it may be a long shot, but could I have it?  She said yes and got my name and address.  I’ll only have to pay for shipping and handling.  I asked her what sort of thing I might get and she said maybe some lamb, baby cow, elk.  This is leather for two years from now!  Nice stuff, I saw some samples.  My teacher who went with us said a girl did the same thing a few years ago and made all of her assignments from it.  I doubt I will, but maybe I’ll have some extra leather that will inspire me to finally figure out how to make boots.  I patted myself on the back, though, because no one else from our school group got any fabric.  I had some cocky thoughts that I should’ve tried at more places.  Who knows if they’ll actually follow through and send it to me, though.

Up for the weekend: flea market, pastry buying and nicer dinner for valentines, and dancing in the marais district (which is the gay neighborhood)

I have no food report, I’ve been eating at home, I’m so used to being stingy after saving up for this for two years.  That, and it’s freezing, snowing, and raining over here, so I’m not too inspired to go out.  I did find my sandwich shop today, though, with the perfect baguette (not too chewy, not too soft, not too crunchy so that it tears up the roof of your mouth), real, well roasted cold cuts of chicken, tomato, lettuce, good cheese, and some sort of condiment that must have crack in it cause it’s sooooo good.

This one’s even longer….sorry!  Happy Valentines.

Sorry guys, I'm not coming back

I think that if I died and went to heaven, I’d be disappointed compared to this.  I can’t believe this is my life right now, this is turning out to be better than I could ever dream.  Ok, so, where to begin?  I guess I’ll just do a chronological order sort of thing.

Travelling here was pretty flawless.  There were a couple “hiccups” (as dad calls it).  On the trip from San Francisco to London, there was this really nice British man who helped me find a place to put my carry on, and we got to talking.  I told him I was studying abroad in France, so we started talking about the language barrier, and he was talking about how some American people sometimes can’t understand what he’s saying.  And I said something along the lines that most americans even have trouble with English… meaning that we can’t speak the language ourselves, but he didn’t respond and the conversation was over.  At first I thought that maybe he didn’t want to go into the territory of bashing Americans, and I didn’t realize until 15 min later that maybe he thought that I meant that most Americans don’t like the English people or something.  By the time I realized this it was of course too late to clear it up, so I spent the rest of the plane trip obsessing over it, and I didn’t talk to him at all.  It was a shame because he was a really cute old man.  He wore those glasses with the sunglasses attached, and the sunglasses were completely flipped straight up the entire plane ride.  As the French say, “tapi” (too bad).  The other hiccup was that they lost my luggage, but I got it within a couple days, they even delivered it to the school.

So, as for what I’ve been up to:

I first arrived on Wednesday, a Sri Lankan man named Vigita picked me up from the airport and I got my first taste of crazy Paris traffic during rush hour.  But it was accompanied by nice conversation.  He helped me into my “apartment”, which is pretty much a glorified dorm room with a kitchen and bathroom.  It’s very cute, though.  It’s yellow with high ceilings.  The longest wall is curved, and it’s all just very quaint but still comfortable.  I’m on the ground floor, so my view is a cement wall.  But some girls live on the 5^th (which is actually the 6^th) floor, and they have a nice view that I steal a little bit of each time I go up there.  The Laundromat is right next to our apartment complex, the school is a block a way, and the open air market is another block away.  It’s pretty perfect. 

The first night I went out on the tab of the school to Chinese with the other girl that was already here, Kristina.  I was really hesitant when I saw the cheap prices, Erik’s made me very phobic of cheap city Chinese food, and the last thing I wanted was to get sick as soon as I got to school.  But it was fine, I had some tasty ginger chicken.

Everybody’s been incredibly nice, too.  I don’t know whether it’s just the way the French are, but they all seem enchanted with you when they talk to you.  They’re very friendly and helpful.  And they all dress so nice!  I want to raise my sons here so they’re comfortable to dress well.  The women are ridiculously gorgeous.  Everyone has flawless, olive skin, and beautiful hair.  The trends I’ve seen are very thick scarves that come all the way to your nose, nerd glasses, and lace up boots.  All the boots are to the knees.  But they wear too much black.  I guess it’s like any major city (like New York), but it’s boring.  It has been cold, though, so I’ll wait to judge come spring time when the coats come off.  It is funny, though, because the city is very cliché – so many people wear berets and smoke.   I can’t be outside people watching without having the side effect of having my clothes reek for the next couple days.  And they’re all so incredibly …French looking.

I’m sorry this is so long, I haven’t even started talking about the amazing school!  It’s the school of my dreams, I don’t want to leave it, I wish that I could finish my degree here.  We have the best faculty.  Today we learned haute couture techniques of Madame Gres from the only remaining person who worked with her and who teaches others, Mme Picot.  She worked with her for I think 27 years.  It’s this fine pleating that can only be made with this special silk jersey that they hardly make anymore, and it took me several hours to make a panel of pleats that’s like 5 in long.  She told us the whole history of Madame Gres, and how all of her stuff was sold away, and Picot brought some haute couture dresses and original sketches that the designer made herself!  And she showed us the whole inner boustiere and how the dresses were built.  But she said that in the haute couture house, you had to be doing the techniques for four years before you could start making your first dress.  These dresses would go for 45,000 euros in the 60s, and after we made just a few pleats it was easy to see why – they are soooooo much work!  And so much fabric goes into it, and each client has her own mannequin built for her so that it fits perfectly.

We also went to the Louvre and got some student cards that allow us to skip the lines and get in for free.  Our art history class will be going to a museum once every week, and then the last week of the month we have lecture theory.

I get sooooo much more out of my French class here, and I love the teacher, she’s really good.  She’s really petite and cute, too, she kinda looks like a French Penelope Cruz.

I made a sloper (the basic pattern) for a standard mannequin, and I’m working on one to fit my measurements.  We’re going to make a skirt, pants, a jacket, and an evening gown.  And then there’s all these historic costume techniques we’re going to learn.  Our patternmaking and draping teacher specializes in costume and is on some official sounding history research council.  We also have a teacher who worked for Nina Ricci for years.  Jesus Christ, I’m not worthy. 

And this Friday we’re going to Primiere Vision!  Which is a textile show that displays what’s going to be in seasons two years from now.  I just can’t believe these opportunities.  I keep looking around to the other girls in astoundment by what we’re being exposed to, but haven’t quite received the same enthusiasm.  I think most girls enjoy themselves silently.  Right now we only have 5 girls in the fashion program, but we join regular classes when the regular students get back next week.

We visited Montmartre, too, where we went to a fabric store with 6 floors!  We also went to an open air market the same day.  Yum!  Is all I can say.  I wanted to buy everything.  We made lunch as a group.  We made an endive salad with apples, walnuts, and cheese, with nut oil and a little raspberry vinegar.  And then we had a roasted chicken, a variety of cheese, and a yummy green salad with a simple dressing of oil, balsamic vinegar, and shallots.  Man, the combinations they come up with are out of this world.  Sandwiches being sold for 3 euro will have like ricotta cheese, with mozzarella, tomato, ham, mushrooms, basil, and other goodies.  Just simple things that would never occur to me to put together.  I think I might’ve been bit by the cooking bug.  I might come home making an effort to partially fill up to my mom’s shoes…like the pinky toe of the shoe.  For now, though, my main meal has been cheese with baguettes, and some fruit. 

That’ll be it for now.  Thanks if you read that whole boring thing.  I’ll make sure to write more often so it’s not so long everytime.  I miss and love everyone!  I wish you were all here with me!