allô, allô, je t'aime, je t'aime!

Sorry for the insanely long interval between posts, eager readers (all...what...one of you? :D) It's been a hectic week (few weeks? Dear God!)

Key events in the past week in London include, in no particular order:
*Shout Out Out Out Out at the Barfly with Jesse, Mimi, and Anne. The Barfly still has not yet disappointed me. All the acts were amazing, and Shout Outx4 were just as endearing as they were at CMJ. The crowd was less awesome (slash less dancey), but we did our part to change that.
*The Loop (dance club) with basically my entire floor last Tuesday night. It was an amazing, fun, absurd night with lots of dancing and drinking and beaucoup de Justin Timberlake ... unfortunately there was some fresher drama, which just served to remind me why I'm glad I'm not a fresher any more (whoa, guess who's growing up) ... but c'est la vie, the wonderful night itself proved good fodder for:
*Return of the Living Column! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Spec music column is back. Hurrah! I'm pretty psyched with how it came out. Except for when the copyeditors confuse Montpellier, VT, with Montpellier, France. Oh, Spec. Even from far away you're screwing things up.
*Cocktail night at the Watershed (the bar that you practically fall over when leaving our dorm). Formal dress not required, but all the cool kids were doing it. Also, two pound cosmos. A revelation. It was a good night for Ifor-bonding, and we affiliates met some new kids from other floors who seemed plenty cool.
*Oh, and les floormates cooked a huge breakfast this morning -- Jesse, Kelly, Laura, Soumitro, and I had American-style pancakes, scrambled eggs with cheese, a baguette with cheese / Nutella, croissants, clementines, tea, coffee, orange juice...it was quite the wonderful, elaborate spread. The first real breakfast I've had in London, and of course the company was great.

Okay, now, let's get to the good stuff. Namely:
PARIS!!!

I flew out of Luton on Saturday morning; the flight itself was about 40 minutes. Literally, we went up, above the clouds, over a bit, and then back down again. Awesome. The lovely Mlle. Emily was there to meet me at CDG; from there, we took the RER to her grandmother Eve's apartment, on Ile St. Louis. The RER stop to get there: freaking Notre Dame. So I wasn't in Paris an hour before we were standing outside Notre Dame. Beautiful. The street where Eve lives is literally every Parisian cliche in one; narrow, cobblestoney, quaint shops (including patisseries, fromageries, boulangeries...everything you dream about when you dream about Paris). When we first got there, we had tea and baguettes with cheese and Nutella (of course!) and watched Sous le Soleil, a French soap opera. A good way to start the day (afternoon). After cooking dinner, we headed out to Ken's apartment for drinks before going out clubbing. Ken's apartment is of course amazing, gorgeous, huge, and super modern, and his boyfriend and his boyfriend's sister were super cool. After enjoying the best wine that four euro can get you (which is, oh wait, way better than any wine back home), we went to this place called Nouveau Casino, which was basically one giant Eurotrash club stereotype. It was great. Thank God for Ken, as French men are a bit too grabby for me and Emily; to our surprise, the best music they played was Blur and reggaeton. Oh, well...thanks, globalization.

Somehow we still woke up early on Sunday and walked--walked!--to Notre Dame for church. I still stand by my belief that church is better in a language I don't understand. We followed this with an incredibly long and wonderful lunch on the island (I LOVE FRENCH FOOD.) We went to the Centre Georges Pompidou -- modern art -- around sunset, climbed to the top, watched the disco Eiffel Tower do its thing (since when does the Eiffel Tower sparkle at night? Weird.) There was a slide show in the gallery we ended up getting seduced by -- hard to explain because any way I'd describe it would make it sound pornographic (gay & straight couples having really graphic sex, along with more standard snapshots of couples) but it was truly wonderful. We stayed to the end, where we found out that, of course, it was by Nan Goldin, the photographer that rocks my world. Amazing. We were still recovering from clubbing the night before, so we ended up going to Cafe Charbon for dinner, which was also on rue Oberkampf, next to Nouveau Casino. According to the guidebooks it's a fin-de-siecle dancehall that was converted to a bar/cafe; in other words, it's gorgeous, all old wood and chandeliers and mirrors. And the ravioli there changed our lives. For real. Oh, my God. So we had a wonderful talk over a slow dinner and red wine, and returned home on the earlier side.

We had a pretty big itinerary for Monday, and that's when the weather changed from decent enough to winter. We started out the day at the Louvre, which was certainly fun ... Emily made up stories about Jesus and the saints for me in the Italian Renaissance wing to keep me entertained, we posed like Asian tourists in honor of the girl who did it unironically in front of the Venus de Milo, we saw the Mona Lisa and decided it wasn't worth it ... the usual. We went up to Montmartre for lunch (yeah, Amelie!) We had the best crepe of my life at a tiny creperie where the Beatles were on the stereo (fromage, jambon, oeuf, et tomate) and then had a wonderful dessert crepe -- two crepes! In one meal! To continue with the French stereotype theme, apparently the waiter hit on me when I used my newfound French to ask for the check (l'addition, s'il vous plait?) Thankfully, I don't speak French well, so according to Emily my "comment? comment?" deflected it well. We then hit up the Espace Dali for some quality time with melting clocks, and went to the supermarche to pick up supplies for dinner. We bought bottles of wine for less than 2 euro--less than 2 euro, dear God!--and made quiche, ratatouille, and creme brulee for dinner. Needless to say it was, oh wait, wonderful. We were quite tired after all that hard work so we watched half of Bend It Like Beckham (to get psyched up for Eurotrip part deux, London town, commencing on Monday!) and went straight to bed.

Tuesday was our last big day, so we started off strong with the Musee d'Orsay. Everyone told me I'd love it, and they weren't kidding. Not only is the architecture amazing (it's in an old train station ... why are the best art museums in the most bizarre spaces?), the art itself covers basically my entire avant-garde theory course's curriculum. Courbet. Gauguin. Breton. Couture. Degas. And, of course, Manet's Olympia, which lives up to expectations of being absolutely stunning. Afterwards, Em and I sketched in the sculpture gallery (meaning, of course, that Em sketched and I sorta drew squiggles on a piece of paper and pretended it resembled something), and she sketched me, which made me feel supercool. Then we headed over to the Eiffel Tower, despite the inclement weather. It was cool (of course); we elected to not go up to the top since, you know, the whole point of the Parisian skyline is to see the Eiffel Tower, and if we were in it, we wouldn't see it, right? Oh, and we didn't particularly feel like being blown off of it. Since it was my last night in Paris, we decided to go in search for the wonder-couscous for dinner. Em'd been to this couscous place two years ago with her family, one with a really funny owner and great food; using our combined powers (okay, her family's combined powers), Ken, Joey, Joey's sister, and we found the restaurant by some miracle. And it rocked our (collective) worlds. From the Spanish pop music playing on the stereo, to the neon/diner aesthetic, to the ginormous plate of couscous and vegetables and chicken, to the owner who came over and talked to us about a Quaker cemetery in Prospect Park, it was nothing short of wonderful. The owner even made us little mini pina coladas for dessert! It was truly one of those cliche "off the beaten track" finds. To top off the evening, Em and I went to the Latin Quarter to a jazz club; we had vodka limonades (which were significantly stronger than the British version, FYI) and enjoyed the smoky basement ambiance.

We had a solid few hours the next day before my flight, so we finished up our souvenir shopping (and bought white shoes!!!!) We also went to a Doisneau exhibit at l'Hotel de Ville, which was exactly the type of photography I like -- urban, snapshot-style, and super-Parisian. I dug it and so did Em (I think we were both more than a bit inspired!) We ended our Parisian adventures with a final baguette and headed off to CDG. Basically, the best vacation of my life...

thus far!

:D