First impressions...

As part of my journal entries for the class I'm taking in Paris, I get to write about some generalities, like cultural differences, interacting with the host family, food, and transportation. I neglected to make a specific post about my first moments in and impressions of Paris this time, but I'd like to get that down into writing before I forget too much.

Whereas the other students on the program were coming from the United States (okay, with the exception of Ryan, who was coming from Italy by train), I flew from Hong Kong by way of Qatar. I only brought one suitcase on this trip, but in Hong Kong I picked up a suitcase of church materials for the Mandarin speaking members in Paris, of which there are a surprising number! When I arrived in Paris, I was surprisingly very much awake - I guess traveling east to west is easier than the other direction. The only problem?

I had no idea what to do with myself.

My roommate in Provo, who's here in Paris doing an internship, had arranged to meet up at 6pm at the LDS Institute building, which I felt absolutely confident I could find. My flight, however, got in at 8 am. I had hours and hours to kill.

So I got my bags, and headed for the train into Paris, where I met my first problem: I had to buy the ticket with cash, because the ticket-dispensing machines here can't read my card. And there was no ATM in the station, which was already a 10 minute (thankfully free) train ride from the airport center. So I hopped back on the free train, crossing my fingers and looking for a distributeur de billets (French for ATM). I found one, got some cash, and twenty minutes later found myself on the RER train, which connects Paris and its suburbs.

"Great," I thought. "Now what?" It was only 10:30 am. Solution: McDonalds.

Katherine had sent me an email with directions to the Institute building, and I could still remember which Metro station to get off at, and although I felt a little less than comfortable dragging these two enormous bags around with me on the Paris underground, I couldn't think of anything better to do. After a transfer or two on the Metro, I found myself totally turned around, blinking in the sunlight, in front of the McDonalds by the Hôtel de Ville. Another bit of useful information I'd gotten from Katherine: free wifi at McDonalds. So I walked in, luggage and all, ordered a fry and a Perrier water, and went straight to the Internet.

I checked my email, let my parents know I was safe, wrote to a couple friends, and tried to figure out how to get to the Institute from where I was. As it turns out, I was just down the street. Knowing the only time constraint I was dealing with was the battery life of my computer, I ate slowly and wandered around the "intraweb" (yep, colloquial Grace English, sorry).

By noon, I'd gotten up the courage to wander back out onto the streets of Paris. I found the Institute building with relative ease, and there met four people who saved me quite a lot of trouble. First, I ran into the missionaries - and the Chinese Elders at that! Even more, one was the brother of my dear friend Gabriel Jaquier. The Elders took the books off my hands. They are excellent, by the way. The Elders, and the books.

Second, I meet the full-time senior couple, the Stovers, who run the Institute. They were kind enough to let me keep my suitcase there for the day while I headed out to wander a bit.

A big thank you to those four individuals. Merci mille fois.

From the Institute, I wandered past Le Forum des Halles, a big shopping center, and found my first cathedral in France: L'eglise de Saint-Eustache. The photo in the right margin is actually from that church.

My experience there was beautiful. I sat down to read Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov and the Scriptures, which actually are quite complementary works, in the presence of the lofty grandeur you see here:



After leaving the church, I wandered some more, but by 3:30 the menace of jetlag was setting in with full force, so I headed back to the Institute. I tried to read, but couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to read a full sentence. I laid down on the wooden floor with Dostoevsky under my head and slept for a solid hour and a half, when Katherine arrived. I woke feeling refreshed, and we headed to the Champs-Elysées to celebrate our being together in Paris. By then, night had fallen, and we decided to get macarons (the miraculous gluten-free pastry!) from Ladurée.

To die for. Delicious. My mouth is watering now just thinking about it. The experience in photos:




Katherine's really cute, but I hadn't showered in like, 48 hours. No big deal. After eating pure joy, we headed back to Katherine's sketchy apartment in the ghetto (yep, she lives in the French version of the Projects). I slept like a rock.

There you have the story of my first day. What were my impressions? First, that I was vaguely lost, unshowered, and not exactly sure how things would play out.

Second, that in spite of all that, I was confidant that I could manage, with a little sweat from lugging my bags around a foreign city (not to mention the good work out it was to maneuver 80+ pounds of luggage up and down the stairs in the Métro).

Third, I was really grateful for the presence of a network of people to cushion my landing, even though I arrived earlier than the rest of my program.

Fourth, there was the relish of macarons in flavors like praline and green apple. Yum, yum, yum. It was a nice, calming contrast to the morning, and inspired a kind of giddy excitement about where I was and what lay before me over the next few months.

Last, there was a moment of exhaustion, which perhaps means I was more anxious than I was really aware, or perhaps that my body was just really confused about what time it was.

Place de la Concorde (5)

On Monday, Ryan, Judy, Beth, and I went on a walk through the government center of Paris. Out of respect for the the French state (which means: mostly out of fear that the guards at these public buildings would take me for a terrorist if I took a lot of pictures) the first part of this walk is photographically undocumented.

We strolled around this area, easily within walking distance from the Louvre, and saw buildings like the Palais de l'Elysée, the official residence of Monsieur le Président de la République française, currently Nicolas Sarkozy.

The central attraction of the walk was the Place de la Concorde. This open square is quite central to Paris, just west of the Tuileries garden. Before the French Revolution, the square was called Place Louis XV, but such a royal title was abandoned with the fall of the monarchy. "And great was the fall thereof": Louis XV's grandson, Louis XVI, was actually guillotined here on 21 January 1793.

Today, the more politically neutral Egyptian obelisk that Napoleon brought back from his conquests stands in the middle of the square:



From the Place de la Concorde walk, we wandered over the the Tuileries garden, my personal favorite part of this walk. Since the day was overcast, though not terribly cold, there were fewer people in the park and we were able to find chairs by the large central fountain and just relaxed for a bit.

I hope it's not too lazy of me, but that was my favorite part of this walk (and the Palais Royal walk, too) - relaxing in a park, rather than important government buildings. I love that there are so many refuges like this in Paris - a park, no matter how small, full of trees and flowerbeds and benches and fountains... I so prefer that to staring at rock walls, even those in the Haussmann style. If only I could get someone to play disc with me here... Any volunteers?

A Walk in the Park: Jardin de Luxembourg (3)

On Sunday afternoon, I took a walk through the Luxembourg garden with Judy and Katherine.

The last time I was here in Paris, the hotel we stayed in was within walking distance to the Luxembourg garden, and as the aspiring Romantic that I was at 17, I sat in the in front of the Catherine de Medici fountain, "thought about the meaning of everything and ate a baguette and fell in love with life." I quote myself, two years and nine months ago to the day.

One of Katherine's favorite things is the French game Pétanque, which is very closely related to Bocce ball, for all you (semi)athletic Provonians. It was terribly entertaining to watch (okay, it held my attention a good seven minutes - that's impressive for me and sports, okay?). There are several Pétanque courts (fields? No idea) Jardin de Luxembourg, and apparently there's nearly always a game going on Saturdays and Sundays.

Katherine would really like to start the BYU Pétanque team. Anyone want to fund the 70 euros it costs for a set of balls? Excellent.

After leaving the Pétanque players, we wandered past the orangerie, which is basically a seasonal greenhouse. During the winter months, the protected plants flourish inside the orangerie, and are then planted out in the garden. This is really a quite confusing name, because the orangerie in the Tuileries is now a museum that holds paintings by Monet, Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso... The orangerie in the Luxembourg gardens is still a place for growing plants out of season.

Since it was a Sunday in the park, there was live music and people milling all around. I kicked my third pigeon and listed to the energetic African band playing at the bandstand. We then wandered away towards the "pelouse interdite" at the south entrance to the garden, and sat semi-illegally among the locals and their cigarette butts. It was an enchanting afternoon of wandering.

All in all, the Luxembourg gardens, affectionately called "Luco" by the locals, is a lovely place, and high up on my list of places to visit if you ever come to Paris.

Palais Royal (9) and a nap in the park

Last week, I went a walk around the neighborhood north of the Louvre. What struck me most about this area was the cool juxtaposition between old and new.

Several big names have lived in the Palais Royal, including Cardinal Richelieu and the young Louis XIV. During the Revolution, however, it became a gathering point for popular demonstrations. It is perhaps because of this history that the apparent clash of the old and new is so... not clash-y.

Here's the first courtyard we stumbled across on the walk, which illustrates this contrast:




Another landmark (okay, maybe just to me) was the BnF: La Bibliothèque nationale de France, or the French National Library. According to the note in the Paris walks book, this is "where most of your French professors researched for their dissertations."

As we approached the library, however, my walking companions and I were struck with sudden exhaustion and decided to go relax in the park across the street, which turned into a lazy, in-and-out-of-dreams kind of afternoon. That's my kind of Paris.



Besides the juxtaposition of old and new, I also really enjoyed the doors in this district. Vibrant colors, cool designs... Who cares what the apartments on the inside of the building look like?

The Latin Quarter (10)

The other day, a couple friends and I took a little spin around le quartier latin, or as we good anglophones say, "The Latin Quarter." I think I should first explain the name. When I first heard it, I was thinking salsa bars. Nope. Actually, in the Middle Ages, German, English, Spanish, Italian, French, etc. students gathered to Paris, a university center, and communicated in the then-universal language of instruction, Latin. The Sorbonne, founded in 1253, is in this quarter, thus "Latin."

Today, the Latin Quarter is a very ethnically diverse neighborhood, meaning there's good falafel, kebabs, Indian food, sushi, couscous, and even Mexican. I did this walk with my dears, Ryan and Judy, and we split a kebab assiette (a kebab on a plate, rather than in a pita) and ate it on the steps of what I think is my favorite cathedral in Paris, Saint-Séverin.

From the outside, the cathedral is pretty shabby and dirty looking (if you can call something painstakingly chiseled form rock "shabby") but the stained glass windows at the east end are awe-inspiring.



Again, the photo can't do the reality justice, but the abstract shapes and vibrant colors of the windows are truly enchanting. I think the most elevating experience I have had in Paris was gazing at this window, deep in thought:



Beautiful, isn't it? Some time, you should go and spend a long moment in front of that stained glass.

For me, the other highlight of this walk was seeing the building the French Academy meets in. If you're unfamiliar with the institution, it's basically the French language police. They decide what usages are acceptable, what new words can come into the language, and back in the age of strictly regulated artistic productions, even governed public aesthetic tastes. In the 17th century, the Academy condemned Pierre Corneille's Le Cid for failure to conform to the three unities of time, place, and action (which is dumb enough that it's not worth the time to explain) and for crossing the tragic and comedic genres to create the "tragicomedy." Can you imagine A. O. Scott as a government minister condemning Iron Man 2 for its multiple shooting locations? Weird. Of course, the Academy lost such power long ago, and is now stuck to policing misuse of the imperfect subjunctive and inventing words like courriel to replace the English word "email," which still gets used in the daily French.

What snobbery. One more thing white people like: hating the French Academy.

Here's the building, in any case:



Also, just as a final note on the academy: Is it not perhaps a bit ironic that the linguistically xenophobic French Academy is in the heart of a district so culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse? Got to admit, I like that.

Chartres Cathedral

On Tuesday, our group took a train out to the town of Chartres, about an hour outside of Paris. Exploring all these old Gothic churches makes me so glad I got to learn a bit about the architecture from Dr. Hurlbut (and yes, I know I mentioned him two posts ago, but he really is just such a superb professor I'm sure references will keep coming up).

We arrived around lunchtime, and Judy and I decided to begin our exploration of medieval architecture with a much more modern meal: kebabs. We love it, no matter what the name: kebab, gyro, döner... Keep it coming.


After lunch, we headed over to the cathedral, officially called Notre-Dame de Chartres because it was (and I guess still is!) dedicated to adoration of the Virgin Mary. Pilgrims came (and I guess still come!) to see a special relic of the Virgin--a piece of her veil.

It's a masterpiece.

Our tour guide, a remarkably entertaining Brit named Malcolm Miller, who literally wrote the book on Chartres Cathedral, was terribly interesting and insightful. Before visiting the church, we read an Ensign article by Jack Welch on the mise ensemble in one of the Chartres windows (which are by the way world-renowned for their vibrant and irreplecable blue) of the story of the Fall of Adam and the parable of the Good Samaritan. Dr. Welch and Mr. Miller explained that in the Middle Ages, theologians read the parable as an illustration of the fall of man, Christ's rescue, His entrusting humanity to the Church, and then His promise to return. Really, read the article. It's excellent.

The tour of the Cathedral opened my eyes to more than just vibrant colors and medieval theology. I realized (again, this actually happens quite often) that my own culture and upbringing and religious background and historical context mean that I'm blinded to things that would be obvious to others. For example, when I look at stained glass windows, I mostly see beautiful patterns of light and maybe, with help, the story the glass is trying to tell. However, I miss the deep, rich symbolism that would have been second nature to a 13th century pilgrim. Being at Chartres--and further, being in a new culture period--makes me realize again what Clifford Geertz explains in his article "Religion as a Cultural System": religion (and this thing we call CULTURE itself) is
(1) a system of symbols
(2) which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in men
(3) by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and
(4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that
(5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

I don't care to explain all of that in great depth, and if you care to read it, the article is on GoogleScholar somewhere. What I'm getting at is this "uniquely realistic" thing. One CULTURE is transparent to those who live within it, but another CULTURE is illegible to outsiders. I don't look at stained glass windows the same way a 13th century pilgrim would because what for him is obvious (or "uniquely realistic"), is hidden to me, who doesn't understand the culture, the symbols, and the theology that surround their interpretation.

Also, credit goes again to Dr. Hurlbut for introducing Clifford Geertz into my life. Thank you, Sensei.

It occurs to me now that I should post some of the pictures I took at Chartres, but like I said about Sainte-Chapelle, you really just need to go have a look yourself. The Cathedral is enormous and beautiful and awe-inspiring.






Go! It's beautiful! But get a tour from Malcolm Miller. Truly an insightful experience.

Saint-Ouen's Labyrinthe: the world's largest flea market (15)

Preface: it's super gauche to take pictures at the flea market, so sadly I have no photos of the actual locus of the walk, just the treasures we found.

The flea market is really set up in two major sections. The first is full of (and please, pardon any racial undertones) North African men making rather offensive and aggressive sales pitches. Their goods are mostly of the mass-produced kind: cheap jewelery, shoes, kitchenware... As for the offensive sales pitches, calling me "sexy" is actually going to make me run away rather than making me want to duck into your tent full of fiddle-faddle-gadgets that I don't want anyway.

There were, I admit, a few stores this tourist-blood-sucking section that appealed to me. First, the proprietors of one store were jammin' out to some Bob Marley and burning some delicious-smelling incense. Good smells are always welcome in Paris, where the smell of latrines will overwhelm your olfactory sensors at any given moment and without warning. Appealing to my sense of smell: a good idea.

The second tent I really liked was a (Portuguese?) guy selling delightful leather bags. If I had had 120€ to drop on the beautiful travel bags I saw, I would be back there in a heartbeat. There's something about that kind of rough-and-tumble-but-still-scholarly leather bag that makes me want to explore Egyptian caves in search of the Holy Grail. Oh, Indy!

The third tent that charmed me was the Indian couple selling some brilliantly colored scarves. All the girls in the group bought (at least!) one. Here's a sampling:


Here's Beth's, a nice mix of colors for a very versatile scarf.


This is the one I bought. The two other scarves I have here (and no that I come to think of it, almost all the scarves I own) are cool colors, so I went for brighter, warmer colors.



And this is Judy's. That deep green... mmm, I like.


If anyone wants me to pick them up a scarf, I'm happy to do it. Just let me know.

Now for the juicy stuff: the real flea market that most tourists don't make it to. My overall impression? A really high-end indie-spirit garage sale. We found some wild things, like gilt fans for 300€ and a lot of really neat period chairs. The shopkeepers all seem to be terribly eccentric--they'll specialize in something like glass beads or silverware or old postcards. It was quite an adventure to dig through row upon row of old postcard, some written and sent, some still waiting for their chance in the mail. I actually rescued a few of these and sent one to my friend Jacob Barrows in Provo, who's an avid postcard collector.

All in all, the flea market, or marché des puces, is an interesting experience, but probably not essential to the average tourist. If, on the other hand, I were refurnishing my apartment off the Champs Elysées with trendy, vintage finds, I would certainly becoming a frequent at the market.