Monoprix!

As promised, by the title you can tell that this post is going to be all about one of my favorite places! I think the reason why I love it is because it's one of the only places that most closely resembles a store that could be found back home in the U.S. I would start off by describing it as the closest thing to Target here. It's really crazy, I realized when I first got here and was trying to find stuff for my little studio apt that there really is no everything-in-one affordable store like Wal-Mart or Target. The only thing is Ikea which are located in the 'burbs, outside of the city, kind of a big schlep. I did it once, by myself, and although maybe in need of a couple more things, I have not felt it's worth that haul again.

Anyway, back on the subject. Monoprix is a grocery store that has two levels, or two parts, depending on which of the many in the city you stumble across. One part is for food products, like bread, wines, deli stuff, freezer stuff, etc. The other part has clothes, cosmetics, shampoo, toothpaste, towels, dishes, books, sheets, containers, etc. You hopefully are getting the picture. The second part is what kind of reminds me of Target, just a more down-scaled version.

There are also stores called Monop' scattered around the city as well, and cleverly, the name embodies what the store has--half of what Monoprix has, meaning groceries only. When I realized this, I was definitely an even bigger fan of the whole company.

Lucky for me, I'm smack dab, distance-wise, in between a Monoprix and a Monop'. Very convenient :) Anyway, I'm in love, and I have to say I think I'll miss shopping there once I come home...that is, until I'm reunited with "Tar-gét" et le Wegman's haha.

p.s. I've heard that the Wegman's near me at home is completely reorganized and totally different inside! I'm super curious about it now!

Reading on the metro...

I, and probably anyone else who has ever been on the Paris metro, have noticed that books have taken over Paris' underbelly. "Pocket" livres (books) are sold everywhere, from Monoprix (grocery store that I have just realized I've never blogged about... that will change soon) to Relay Newsstands that are inside the big metro stations. Without fail, at least one person on every ride will be reading one.

What I really think is interesting though about the whole phenomenon, is that it doesn't matter how entassé (packed, crammed) a train car is, there will be people reading away. The reader could be balancing on one leg while being smashed between someone's smelly armpit and the door, hidden from view--it wouldn't matter. All that you will still be able to see is a floating wrist, part of the hand, 3 fingers, a little paperback novel. It's certainly a skill.

So, today when on the second floor of Monoprix, I stumbled into the book section, and decided to get myself some metro reading material. I ended up getting the 2nd thing I picked up, the French version of one of the books in the Confessions of a Shopaholic series. It's definitely a guilty pleasure type read but hey--at least it's in French. I figure my attention span for reading will probably be pretty short while reading it, as I'll probably have plenty of distractions while getting from point A to point B (a justification for reading this that I'm telling myself). The author is Sophie Kinsella, and this installment is titled: L'accro du shopping: dit oui. Translated this means, "The Shopaholic: say yes."

I just realized that the first book of the series was made into a movie starring Isla Fisher, which was good in my opinion...I mean it was definitely not Oscar-worthy, but it was a no-thinking-required romantic comedy, which is many times my movie type of choice. Sometimes it's just nice not to analyze, but to just watch a movie for what it is.

I'll update later about how this reading-in-the-metro thing works out for me.

Bye for now!

Restaurant Review: L'Ebauchoir

This is the first edition of a little sub-blog I've decided to try to do, restaurant reviews of local restaurants I've been to. I've been wanting to do this from the beginning, but, just never got my act together...Well, that changes now!

The first place that I've decided to talk about now is a little local place called l'Ebauchoir (sounds like "leh-boach-warre" does that make sense?). It's in my arrondissement, the 12th, on rue de citeaux. There's not much around it, so when walking to it at night, you get the feeling you are going the wrong way, but, don't worry, you are probably on the right track. It's definitely more of a local, neighborhood place, which is one of the things I like about it.

I first heard about it through a Paris Guide my freshman year French prof, Dr. Pappas, who lived in Paris for several years. Her abridged version that she sent me includes a list of a few of her favorite restaurants. This is what she said about it: "An absolutely fabulous French bistro. A great place if you want to try authentic French food (they also have unbelievable seafood if you can’t take the focus on red meat…) A real neighborhood place—lots of regulars."

So of course I was intrigued, and the fact that it is walking distance from where I live didn't hurt either. When my uncle and aunt cam to Paris for a visit, this was one of the restaurants I took them to, or I guess, they took me :) I also went again when my mom visited, because of the great meal I had had the first time with my aunt and uncle.

The first time I went, I got the scallops, and for dessert, the apple tarte. My uncle got the lamb, my aunt got the fish, and for desert they shared a roasted mango with lemon sorbet and almond mousse. YUM. We all loved everything. And the staff was so friendly, and spoke English very well.

The second time we had a very good meal as well.

In the sidebar there are links (under "places mentioned") to the restaurant's webpage, as well as the restaurant's blog, which is where it puts its menus and pictures of its dishes. The restaurant's website is very impressive, when you roll the mouse over different people in the background, you can hear what the people are saying...it's kinda hard to explain. Also, WARNING: A visit to the blog might result in mouth-watering and extreme hunger.

Information:
English-Friendly
Price: Dinner, 3 courses for 25 EUR, 2 for 22.50
(33) 01 43 42 49 31 for reservations
Closed on Sundays
43-45 rue de Citeaux 75012
Metro: Ligne 8, stop Faidherbe-Chaligny OR Ligne 1, stop Reuilly Diderot

Pictures taken off of the l'Ebauchoir blog:


Mango dessert


Scallops

Big trips planned!

So, I wanted to share on my blog what plans I have travel-wise so far. I am going to 3 places over my spring break, which takes place over the last two weeks in April. First, on the 17th I'm going to Amsterdam with my friend Mira who is studying in Montpellier, France for the year. After a few days, we're overnight bus-ing it to Prague! I've been to Amsterdam once before, but have never been/have always wanted to go to Prague, so I'm super excited, especially for Prague. Then, we arrive back in Paris morning of Monday April 26th, and believe it or not, later on that same day I'm hopping another flight to Edinburgh, Scotland, to see my good friend from home who is studying in St. Andrews for the semester.

It's going to be an absolutely crazy couple of weeks, but I'm excited to be getting the most out of my break as possible. I'm have a feeling some pretty blog-worthy events will come out of it :)

However, there are still more places I want to visit!
Most of all, I want to go to Barcelona, because I've never been to Spain! I'm so anxious to get that country "checked off," so to speak, on my list of countries I've been to.

I also want to go to London to visit Nadia, because, well, how much fun would that be?! I've been before, but only did touristy stuff, and am hoping that Nadia will show me all of the insider places to be in London town.

Other places that I have thought about, but don't know if I'll be able to do:
Brussels, Belgium for a weekend?
Greece?
Switzerland
Austria (Sound of Music tour=life dream haha)

I have Fridays off :) so hopefully this will make it easier to go away for the weekend. If any of these places seem like places you'd be interested in visiting, maybe we could be travel buddies? It would most likely have to be over the weekend, like I said, possibly starting on Friday, or, I could even skip my Thursday afternoon class, or leave early from it, or, go right after. (Luckily, my Thursday class' prof is super understanding and doesn't really care about attendance) Let me know!

So, I'll update if I add any more plans to the mix, but for now, I'm super excited for spring break!

ok, so, hopefully i'll be better about blogging in march...

So, I basically abandoned this blog for the entire month of February. Oops. I kept thinking "I need to post," and then, didn't. It was a super busy month, providing a ton of blog-worthy material, but at the same time, making it difficult to sit down and record it all. But, I am making a former resolution now to be better.

I had many visitors in this month. First my friend Mira came to stay with me for a weekend, then my uncle Bruce and my aunt Pia stopped by for a few days, then, my mom for a week, and then, Nadia for a day! It was sooo great to have a constant flow of visitors, it made the month fly by! Good thing I live in one of the greatest cities on earth--this makes it a pretty simple task to lure guests onto my domain :)

Classes also started in February, which are all going well. I'm taking 3 at Dauphine and 1 at Paris 3 (Nouvelle Sorbonne) offered by my program, MICEFA. At Dauphine, I'm taking International Business Ethics, Cross Cultural Barriers and Paradoxes, and Econ of the European Union. At Paris 3 I'm taking A Litterary History of Paris. The Dauphine classes are in English with Erasmus students from all over the world, and the other is with other Americans in the MICEFA program and is in French.

I'm definitely all settled into my room, it definitely feels like home whenever I walk in the door. I've tried to make it as comfy and colorful and homey as I can, with the help of ikea :) Seriously, when I for real get my own apartment, I am going to go to Ikea in the morning, and walk out at night with everything I could possibly need for it. I love it.

The weather is starting to get better, it's usually blue skies, although still really cold in the shade and at night. But honestly, I like being here in the winter, I'm not really looking forward to being in the metro when it's warmer, shoved against a bunch of sweaty, smelly people haha. But seriously, I like being relatively covered up on the metro, and how everyone else is too. Plus, I love winter clothes :) I have this really thick, long, knit scarf that I got here (every girl seems to have one here) that I love wrapping around my neck like 3 times. I'll be sad when it's too warm for it.

I've pretty much done all of the touristy stuff at this point, and am beginning to figure out where my favorite neighborhoods are. I love walking through the Jardin des Tuileries, the garden that stretches out in between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde. I really love where I live too, the Bastille area. It's right next to the Marais, which might be my favorite area. It's the oldest area in Paris, and is traditionally the Jewish area. I went to this really popular falafel place there with my mom, it's called l'As du Falafel. I had my first and certainly not my last falafel there.

Another obsession of mine is a department store called BHV. It stands for Bazaar de Hotel de Ville. "Department store" is kind of a really big understatement. It's like, everything and anything you could ever want to buy, all in one place. The basement floor is the most extensive hardware store you've ever seen, the main floor is designer clothing and bags, the next floor (my fave) is arts and crafts and stationary and music and books and picture frames and office supplies, and the next floor I think is like towels, bathroom stuff, home organizations etc, and so on and so forth for a few more floors. It's CA-RAY-ZEEE.

The next place I love is the mosquée de Paris. It feels like another world. They serve little glasses of tea, and there's also a restaurant and a little place where you can get little snacks. It's such an escape from city life. I highly recommend it.

Also, when my mom visited we went to Strasbourg, France for a couple days. It was a very small little town on the eastern border of France, right next to Germany. It is one of the locations of the EU parliament. The whole town could be walked in ten minutes from end to end. Although small, there were still major designer stores and department stores. My mom and I stayed in the Sofitel Hotel, which was sooo nice. It was nice to live in the lap up luxury for a few days. The BED was INCREDIBLE. It was for sale and I was tempted to buy it, except for the fact that it was like, really expensive haha.

I guess that's it for now, I'll try to elaborate on other things that I failed to write about for the month of February later.


My first falafel!


Strasbourg!


The inside of one of the rooms of the mosquée

Week 3

So, I woke up on Monday the 17th with a full-fledged cold :( Headache, constantly running nose, cough, watery eyes, and even a fever. I couldn't bring myself to get to class, so I stayed in bed all morning and slept. I would have stayed there all day, but I actually had to go visit Dauphine, the university I'm going to be attending. I had to meet at the MICEFA center in the 5th and go with the others also going with one of the MICEFA staff members. Dauphine is on the exact opposite side of the city compared to where I live, but it's the only school that I can get credit to transfer to the Robins School. Each university in Paris is numbered, and has its own subjects that it specializes in. For example Paris 8 specializes in more "artsy" courses like dance and cinema. Dauphine, or Paris 9, is the business university. Once at Dauphine, I was able to fill out a form to receive a student ID, which I picked up later that week on Friday.

This whole week I was sick, so I didn't really do much after class. I usually went home right after class and relaxed, so I could be better by the weekend.

Flash forward to Saturday the 23--I went to "Paradis tzigane," a gypsy circus in the 17th with MICEFA. I didn't know what to expect, but it was great. As I was walking there, I saw the tent in the distance and knew I was in the right place. However, when I rounded the corner and went into the courtyard where the tent was, I was confused, because it was amongst what seemed to be a junkyard or trailer park, full of old trailers and debris. Despite this, I heard music coming from the tent and knew I had to be in the right place, I mean, how many gypsy circuses on boulevard de Reims in the 17th could there be? I slipped through the tent flaps, and sure enough, there were tons of families with their kids, and a tightrope walker in the middle of a performance. It was an experience that was totally non-touristy, and I was so glad that I went.

The next day I was supposed to meet my "Dauphine buddy," someone who goes to Dauphine who was assigned to me through Dauphine to be a contact and friend while I'm here. His name is Cyril, and he's really nice. We ended up meeting at les Halles metro, where there are actually tons of stores and even a movie theater. However, all the movies were sold out by the time we got there, so we went to the Bibliothèque Mitterrand stop where there is a GIANT movie theater. We ended up having to wait an hour anyway to see a movie there, but it was good because we had some time to get to know one another, and I practiced my French a little, and he practiced his English, which he is very good at. We saw Invictus with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, in VO, or version orginale, meaning it was in English with French subtitles.

WEEK 2!

So, I've been a slacker when it comes to this blog...I guess I'm just not in the habit yet. Also, I've been super busy getting settled and getting adjusted. So, where did I leave off? I won't be able to mention everything, but I'll try to include all the major things.

Since my last post I've moved to a single room :) I actually never ended up meeting my roommate, as I moved before she arrived. Now, I'm in a room that I love, with plenty of space for all my stuff! I love it. Also, I've met a bunch of great people from American University. Out of all of the students doing the MICEFA program, the AU kids are the only others who are also using ACCENT for housing arrangements. Out of all of us using ACCENT, I'm the only one in ACCENT's student housing for Americans. They are all doing homestays at various locations across Paris.

So what touristy things have I done so far? On Saturday January 9th I went to Notre Dame when it was snowing! It was so beautiful to see the whole square covered in snow. There, I met up with another girl in the program from American University named Alex. We decided to get out of the cold and go to a little brasserie and have lunch. I had french fries, french onion soup, and a café crème. It was just what I needed on such a cold day. Being the first time either I or Alex had eaten out in Paris, we didn't know that the tip is included, and left like a 4 euro tip. Oops. Here, the tip is always included in the total, and only if the service was excellent should you maybe leave a euro for the waiter.

After lunch we met up with 2 other girls, also from AU, at Notre Dame and walked through. It was amazing because there was music playing, something that doesn't happen all the time. After Notre Dame, all of the MICEFA students met on Pont Neuf for a boat tour on the Seine.

A snowy Notre Dame



Picture from Boat Tour on the Seine


After the weekend, on Monday the 11th and Tuesday the 12th, I took written and oral placement tests in order to be placed in a MICEFA french class that is every morning until February. There are 5 sections, 1 being for those who are pretty much fluent, and 5 being for beginners. I was fortunately placed in section 2, even though I thought I did horribly on the tests. The class is mainly review of all the major grammar rules, and has been very helpful--there are so many things that I completely forgot about! Classes started on that Thursday. It has been held every morning at Paris 3, a.k.a. la Nouvelle Sorbonne. Paris 4 is the old Sorbonne, the school that many have probably heard of. I don't get credit for it, but Richmond does require that anyone studying in a country that is not English-speaking must take a course in the native language.

Over the weekend (Jan 17, Saturday) after classes began, I had most of the people from American University who are also doing ACCENT housing (home-stays) over to my little studio for a little soirée. Before most people came, 2 girls, Kelsey and Julia, stopped over to escape the rain and chill out until the party. I ended up dying Julia's hair with some hair dye she bought here. She has dark brown hair, and she wanted to lighten it up a little bit. When it was time for her to wash the dye out, we had a little scare, as it seemed like her roots had turned orange! Kelsey and I tried to stay calm, but Julia was definitely freaking out, like anyone would! And during the freak-out, a wine glass was dropped and broke, creating an even more chaotic state in my little room! However, once we cleaned the glass, and once Julia's hair dried completely, the color evened out and it turned out to be the exact color on the box! Whew! I felt so guilty for being the one who dyed it in the first place.

Later, slowly but surely others started to arrive, until before I knew it I had like 10 people in my room! It was a tight squeeze, but it was fun to have everyone over. We made pasta, had tons of wine, cheese and bread, and a galette des rois, a traditional flaky pastry cake that is only eaten in January. The youngest person slices the cake, and then hands out slices to everyone. Baked somewhere in the cake is a little plastic toy, and whoever finds it is the "roi," or king, and the king then has to choose a "reine," or queen. Or, I guess visa versa if it's a girl that finds the toy first, haha.

Afterwards, we all went to Rue de Lappe, a little street in walking distance from my place that is filled with bars. We ended up are a bar called Bar Charlotte, or something like that, which had a very cool atmosphere. Then, we went to this really cool bar/restaurant called Sanz Sans, or maybe it's Sans Sanz? I can't remember. It's on Rue du Faubourg-St Antoine.

I'm not positive because of course I didn't write it down, but then the next day on Sunday the 17th I went to the Louvre with 4 other girls from AU. It's great because with a valid student ID proving you are a student here, admittance is free! We went through the Sully and Richelieu wings, which included artifacts from ancient Egypt, and Napoleon's apartment, to name a couple of my favorites.


Egyptian artifacts



Napolean's aparment...



Crystal vanity that I am obsessed with. SOOO pretty!

My First (Quite Long) Post

So who knows if I'll actually follow through on this blog, but for know I'm going to give it a shot. Hopefully, by the end of this blog, I will have documented a semester's worth of fabulous adventures through the streets of Paris!

I guess my trip began at Philadelphia International Airport on Wednesday, January 6th 2010 at 7:00pm. At that exact moment in time, I thought my trip would never even happen, because at this time, I realized my passport was not in its case...

Turns out that my mom had taken it to make a photocopy of my student visa, you know, just in case I lost it, or left it somewhere...like HOME?! As soon as I realized it was missing, I asked her where it could be, and she instantly realized that it was at home. She decided to race home and try to get it back to the airport before check-in for my flight closed at...8PM!! (Because my flight was at 9pm, they don't allow anyone to check-in within an hour of scheduled departure.) I was convinced that it was not humanly possible to get home and back within 1 hour, so I was devastated.

However, guess who comes running into the terminal at 7:59 with my passport in her hand?! I couldn't believe that she had made it back, but was still unconvinced that I would make my flight, as the recently beefed up security was supposed to take an extra long amount of time to clear.

We ran up to the check-in counter frantically explaining our rush, and we put my 2 duffel bags on the scales, and of course, my one giant bag is 5 lbs overweight. So, with literally no time to spare, my mom and I scramble to transfer some stuff into the other bag to make weight. As we are doing this, the lady who is checking me in explains that boarding should start in 15 minutes, but that she thinks I can make it. As soon as we got it down to 50.5, my mom says, "Go! Run! Bye!" and I'm off to security, running as fast as I can with my pully carry on and my big tote purse.

Miraculously, I got through security in 15 minutes, and was sitting at the gate with plenty of time, as the flight was, of course, delayed an hour.

And that's the story of how I almost didn't make it to the city of lights!

But I'm here now, and have been for four days today. Apparently it's the coldest its been here in a long time. It's been snowing on and off since I've been here, which I've been told is a very rare occurrence in Paris. While it is frigid though, it is definitely beautiful.

I'm staying in a student "apartment" in the 12th arrondissement, on a beautiful street called avenue Daumesnil. On this street are old train stations that have been converted to artists' studios, which have huge window fronts that allow walkers to see the artists' work and see them in the process of creating new pieces. I put apartment in quotes because it is definitely not what one would think of when they hear the word. It's more like a small 1 room dorm room with an attached bathroom with sink, toilet and shower, and a small kitchen area with a microwave, stove top, and sink. I'm requested to be in a double with a roommate, but my roommate is not arriving until sometime next week, and the room is definitely not a double room in my opinion. The only think "double" about it is the bunk bed on one side of the room. Other than that, there is only one closet and one desk. I'm kinda curious as to how that will work for two people, but I guess we'll see...

This is already a super long post, so I'll tell more about what I've been up to since I've been here another time soon!

Here is a view out my window:


zoomed in: