Mardi

Today was a long day, and it's only now at midnight that I can finally get around to writing about it. After getting ready and eating breakfast at the hotel, the group met in the lobby at 10 to begin the day's activities. Our itinerary included visits to two areas of differing social classes: the first would be to Oberkampf, an area of fairly ordinary people leading their daily lives, and the second to La Place Vendôme, which an area full of chic, expensive boutiques but not a lot of your every day, ordinary citizens- instead, it just attracts visitors from other areas.

Oberkampf was a pretty normal looking area. There were your various food stores, clothing stores, cafes and restaurants, and plenty of people were out and about. As part of the assignment, we were encouraged to go sit a cafe to observe. Unfortunately, we are not quite naturals at French cafe etiquette, and much of it is still a bit of a mystery to me. Do we just sit down anywhere? Inside? Outside? Wait to be seated? It's all just a bit awkward, and I feel very out of place. We actually did sit in the wrong place, and the guy had to tell us to move elsewhere, and of course switched into English immediately. Ugh. It wasn't the best experience, but we still stayed and had coffee to warm us up.

After the cafe, we met up with the group to go to a group lunch, one of the meals included in our program. We went to a Moroccan restaurant called Chez Zak. The group meals are always nice, because everyone's together and the food is pretty much guaranteed to be good. Today was no exception: as an appetizer I had a smoked salmon dish in some kind of oil and herbs, the main course was couscous with vegetables in sauce and merguez, which were kind of like spicy sausages, and a moelleux au chocolat, which was kind of a thinner, denser chocolate cake served with some kind of creme. I also had Orangina to drink and another café (coffee), but it implies espresso. Everything was great, and the restaurant had a nice, cozy atmosphere. It was also nice and leisurely, taking about 2 hours for all the courses.

After lunch, we went on to the second locale. It was definitely very upscale, with tons of expensive stores and designers. I even recognized a few. You could also tell that the people frequenting the area were of a different nature. We didn't have much interaction until Richard, the only male (and much older) member of the group, wanted to buy perfume for his wife back home. In the small perfume shop, we had a lengthy conversation with the saleswoman, who asked us about our time in Paris, etc. We also got perfumed, and I can still smell the scent on me at this moment. On the linguistic level, the language was also slightly different between the two areas- the second area was more formal and closer to standard French, while the first was more conversational and informal. The activities today were designed to prepare us for tomorrow, when we have a guest speaker talking about her research project, which is set to analyze the speech of Paris of today. The two neighborhoods we visited are two that she is including in her project, so we got to see firsthand what she is really delving into.

After a brief discussion with our professor, we were done with scheduled activities for the day. It was only about 4:30, so we had time to spend on our own. We were close to Les Tuileries, a famous garden, so we walked through there and could also see Le Louvre and L'arc de Triomphe and la Place de la Concorde. We took photos and then tried first go to the Orangerie, a museum with impressionist paintings, but of course, it is closed on Tuesdays, as was the Louvre when we tried to make a quick stop there. Since museums were looking unlikely, we just took a short side trip to Le Marais, which is a Jewish area with a lot of shopping. We explored the area a bit and then decided to head back to the hotel for a break. Surprisingly, we met up with the other half of the group at the same metro station, so we all headed back together.

After a brief repose, we had a light dinner, walking just two minutes down the street to a sandwich stand and bakery next door. I bought a nice, warm salmon panini and a really delicious raspberry dessert, and we went back to the hotel to eat together. We planned out some ideas for the next few days during our free time, as well. Most of our sighteeing will actually have be this week, since Monday and Tuesday of next week, we'll be in Rennes, and then all but one other day include evening activities.

It was then around 9:00, so Vanessa and I went on one more excursion to fill out the day. We took a walk down to the Tour de Montparnasse, which is a giant skyscraper in our neighborhood, about 15 minutes by foot. It was built in the 70's to much public outcry, as it's a very New York-esque dark, glass building that completely dwarfs everything around it. It definitely does not fit in with the other architecture of the area. Although they offer tours, it was getting late, and we did not go up. We then walked back to the hotel, where I have been ever since, working on my homework (daily sociolinguistic journal entry) as well as my blog.

Tomorrow is another busy day, so I'll just be off! When I have more time, I will also write in French!

P.S. It is still so cold, especially at night. I'm really hoping it warms up, if only for the fact that in my pictures it looks like I'm wearing the same clothes every day.