This blog has been terribly neglected. I thought that this year of living in Paris would inspire me to write prolifically about it, but in fact, the opposite is true. Paris has been exciting, frustrating, rewarding and boring all at the same time. The familiar rhythm of going to school are hardly worth writing about at any length, and so there are very few blog entries to show for it. My 24th year was a busy year, with lots of adventures and travel, but as my 25th birthday is just a couple of weeks, and my time in Paris is quickly reaching its end, I think that it's time to call it a blog, and wrap things up here.

HOWEVER, I am not giving up on blogging, and in less than a month I will be taking off on my next great travel adventure, so for those of you who might be interested in keeping up with what I'm doing and where I am, I have started a new blog at:

http://fromparistojerusalem.blogspot.com.

Happy reading!

A new year has come, and another month has passed since my last post. In my defense, three weeks were spent on the move in Morocco, and I've been feeling rather lazy about blogging since I got back. However, it's a new year, and there are another seven months before I fly home to Canada, so I'm going to try to be more diligent about updating this blog, if not for the pleasure of the devoted readers, then at least so I'll be able to eventually reread my own entries and remember my year of living and studying in Paris.

It's January in Paris, which means that it's time to go shopping! Sales in France are regulated by the government, and so shops can only markdown items twice a year (in January and July). This concept is totally foreign to anyone coming from North America, where stuff often goes on sale almost as soon as it hits the shelves, but for the French, everyone knows that this is the period when you get your shopping done. In fact, French people take the sales period so seriously that a lot of people actually take vacation days during the période des soldes, in order to spend an entire day bargain hunting. Needless to say, the stores are basically jam packed every day for six weeks as the sales-starved French (and any diehard shoppers who come to France specifically for the sales) duke it out over half-priced towels, toys, clothing and shoes. Seeing as the poor Canadian dollar is currently being battered by the overvalued Euro, I haven't joined the consuming masses (as tempting as it is to jump in), but I've walked past several shops (Galleries Lafayette comes to mind...) that have reminded me of the Tokyo subway at rush hour, minus the presence of uniformed Japanese men (white gloves and all!) literally pushing people into the the car in order to close the doors. 

It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Wanderlust

AH....I really am bad at updating this thing. It's been a month since I last wrote mostly because the last month has been a little heavy in terms of school work, and quite light in terms of new and interesting things to blog about. This is the second to last week of classes before the Christmas break, and to be quite honest, the break can't come fast enough. It snowed for the first time today (or at least it was the first snow that I've witnessed in Paris), and for the first time in three months, I felt a little nostalgic for home...I'm still loving Paris, but the constant grey and drizzle really isn't nearly as pleasant as the fluffy snow back home. Since I'm not going home for the holidays, the hour of wet snow that we received this afternoon is probably the best I'm going to get.

Speaking of the holidays, I haven't left Paris since arriving in September, and I'm definitely beginning to feel the wanderlust creep up. In order to satisfy my need to travel, I'm heading to Strasbourg in the East of France (right on the border with Germany, and the seat of the European Parliament) for three days this weekend, and then in exactly a week from tomorrow I'm jetting off to Morocco for three weeks! This will be my first foray into Africa, so I'm super pumped about it. Mint tea, camel rides, and 5AM calls to prayer, here I come! The decision to go to Morocco was a bit of a last minute thing, because I had been planning on going to Egypt for the break, however Morocco turns out to be much more budget friendly at this time of the year (I'm probably going to hit Egypt in February). So for the moment, I haven't done any planning for Morocco, except that I know that I'm flying in and out of Marrakech, and I've booked my first night's accommodations....other than that, it's all a little up in the air, which is both refreshing and terrifying. Mostly, I'm just excited to hit the road, and to see a little bit more of the world...

On a final note, the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight: I have an appointment for my mandatory medical check next Tuesday, and hopefully in exactly one week from today, I will FINALLY have my residency permit!!!  Once that card is in my hands, I will be able to work (legally), apply for student housing assistance (more paperwork, but SO worth it), and leave the country and re-enter at will. If this is not a cause for celebration, I don't know what is.

French Multiculturalism

There was an interesting article in the New York Times today about what Obama's presidency has meant for Europe, with regards to Europe's own race issues. Before moving to Paris I never thought of France (or Europe more generally)  as being a particularly multiethnic society, and had never considered multiculturalism outside of a Canadian/North American context. I think that after having been born and raised in a country that prides itself for its official multicultural policies and celebrates diversity (the so-called 'Canadian mosaic' as opposed to the 'American melting pot'), the French version of multiculturalism is a bit of a shock to the system (I'm tempted to call it the "French Bleached Canvas"). France is officially secular and colour-blind, meaning that it that there are no official records or statistics available on the ethnic or religious composition of the population; however, if Paris' metro system is any indication, France is a surprisingly diverse country, thanks, no doubt, in large part to a colonial history that involved every region of the world except South America. (That being said, I suspect that Paris, being a metropolitan centre, might be more the exception than the norm, because when I lived in central France in high school in a smaller town, I was definitely the only person of colour within a fifty mile radius.) The issues of ethnic and religious differences have been hotly debated in the last few years, especially since the riots in the suburbs of Paris back in 2005 and the controversy over religious symbols in public schools (including the burka/hijab/niqab, kippa, 'large' crosses, etc.), and there is currently a national debate on whether or not France should adopt some sort of affirmative action program to help overcome the structural and systemic racism that is holding minorities back from integrating into mainstream French society. I'm by no means an expert on the topic, but as a casual observer of French race policies (or lack thereof), I do think that a policy that deliberately ignores ethnic and religious diversity is problematic, as it doesn't permit policy makers to address the community specific needs of different groups; furthermore, by not allowing people to openly practise their faith or cultural traditions (within reasonable limits, which is of course a contested idea), there's a serious risk of creating taboos and more cross-cultural misunderstandings that simply increase hostility and polarization. Anyhow, I'm not a bleeding heart liberal, and I recognize the problems of and weaknesses of the Canadian brand of multiculturalism, but I really question if France's version of multiculturalism is a functional model for the 21st century. 

The first half of this week are reading days at Sciences Po, so there are no classes, and most foreign students have fled Paris, and are either at home (if they're European) or have gone to explore other parts of the country or continent. I, however, am still in Paris. I had plans to hit Barcelona for the five days that I had off, but after considering some of the stickiness that remains regarding my paperwork, and work obligations, I decided to stick around Paris. There are worse places in the world than Paris to be "stuck". 

Today being a rare sunny autumn afternoon in Paris, I took the opportunity to take a stroll around Montmartre and to visit some of its most famous sites. First stop was the Basilic Sacre Coeur, one of Paris’ most famous attractions. It’s a beautiful Byzantine, white onion-domed structure, and has what is arguable the best view of Paris, as it sits atop Paris’ highest hill. Seeing as I’ve already visited the basilica before on my first backpacking trip across Europe when I finished high school in 2003, I didn’t bother to hang around with the hordes of tourists for long. Instead, I decided to check out some of the lesser-known sites of Montmartre, and wound up stumbling on a couple of gems that probably never make it into Lonely Planet. The most interesting site of the afternoon was St. Pierre de Montmartre, a church that’s located just a few minutes walk from Sacre Coeur but has very few tourists. According to the very helpful “Paris historique” sign posted outside the church, St. Pierre de Montmartre has been around since well before the year 1000, having been built on an ancient Roman temple (if I’m remembering correctly, it was a temple for Mars) and is one of the oldest religious buildings in Paris (the oldest being l’eglise St. Germain), but it was abandoned during the French Revolution, and was pretty much in ruins before a “radical restoration” at the end of the 19^th century. Compared to the blinged out interior of Sacre Coeur, St. Pierre’s architecture seems a little Spartan, however its stained glassed windows are really special. I’ve never seen windows like them, they look like they belong to the cubist school (which makes sense because the windows were done in the first half of the 20th century), and look like they could have come straight out of a gothic Tim Burton movie. The windows tell the story of St. Pierre (a.k.a. St. Peter, the rock upon which the Catholic Church was built), including walking on water, betraying Jesus, and redemption.

Walking on water; notice the feet!

I’ve been told that people embarking on major tours of the churches of Europe should make it a point to brush up on their Biblical knowledge beforehand if they want to be able to truly appreciate the beauty and significance of the buildings, just as tourists of Greek and Roman ruins should familiarize themselves with classical mythology. I am not particularly well-versed in Biblical passages, but can remember enough from the days when I attended Mass on a regular basis to recognize the major events that normally make it into church décor (mostly the major events of the Gospels), but I often find myself wondering how non-Christian tourists view churches, especially those who are unfamiliar with the stories of the Bible.

            There are so many clichés about Paris that I’m trying to resist falling victim of, but I’ve become a big fan of the café scene. There really is something irresistible about sitting in a café for a couple of hours, just reading the paper/a book and watching life both inside the café and outside on the streets, preferably with either a café crème or a vin chaud in your hand. Given the over abundance of cafes in Paris, I’m puzzled by the fact that every Starbucks I pass by is always packed beyond belief. Before I started working at a Parisian Starbucks, I figured that most people inside Starbucks were tourists who were probably looking for a little taste of home, but to my great surprise (and a bit of dismay), 75% of the customers appear to be French! I’m not knocking Starbucks, but I always thought that French people probably felt a similar disdain for Starbucks that they express for MacDonald’s. I’m still exploring the café options, but I’ve already got a couple of favourites where I’ve become a regular. They are the rare Parisian cafés that manage to combine a good location (in terms of both convenience and the view that they afford), friendly service (sometimes a rarity in Paris), free wifi (although they lose points if the signal is too weak, or if the café doesn’t have enough electrical outlets for plugging in laptops), a good looking clientele (it’s nice to think to yourself that if you’re a client there, you're good looking by association) and reasonably priced food and drink (once again, somewhat of a rare find in this city). I’m not going to name them here (I’ve got to be selfish and protect these jewels!), but if you come and visit me here, I’ll definitely show you how to find them. 

Waiting on California

One of the frustrating things about being six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time is that exciting news that comes out of North American happens in the middle of the night in Paris. Case in point: election results, both Canadian and American. Now granted, the Canadian election wasn't much of a nail biter, so I had no problem waiting until the next morning to "find out" what we already knew would happen, but the 2008 American presidential election was one of those rare political events where you just have to hear the results live, and hear it with the rest of the world. In order to do this, it requires staying up until 5AM, when the polls in California close, and the results were made official. If you wanted to hear Obama's victory speech, you weren't going to bed until well after 6AM, which for some students at Sciences Po is less than 2 hours before their first morning lecture. Now the logical French person may have decided to simply go to bed early and wake up when the polls in California closed, however we, we being less than logical foreign exchange students, decided that it would be better to stay up all night, watching satellite television in one of the few places in Paris that had been authorized to stay open all night in order to broadcast the results live. Unfortunately, half of Paris had the same plan, which made for an extremely crowded and disorganized night. 

Elsewhere, it's definitely late autumn in Paris. Sunny days are far and few between, and night time temperatures hover around the freezing mark. It's on cold nights like tonight that I find myself dreaming about central heating. France may have better wine and cheese, prettier buildings, a more glorious history (well, that might be debatable, depending on who you ask), a greater appreciation for the arts, and a grander intellectual tradition, but it certainly has a thing or two to learn from the True North when it comes to heating its buildings. In Canada, most homes and buildings are toasty warm thanks to a little miracle called central heating; in France, most homes and buildings are damp, drafty and freezing because heating comes primarily from antiquated radiators which I suspect suck all of the warmth out of the room. 

Christmas in October

People in North America often complain about stores beginning to roll out the Christmas merchandise and music in early November; at Starbucks, we used to start playing Christmas music within a couple of days after Halloween, and we would always have customers make a stink about it. I've personally never had a problem with a long holiday season in stores, (although I do find it to be in somewhat bad taste to start aggressive holiday campaigns before Remembrance Day (Nov. 11)), however, since early October, my local Monoprix has looked like Santa Claus has thrown up all over it, which even I think is ridiculous. I guess since Thanksgiving and Halloween are strictly North American holidays (and merchandising bonanzas), there's really nothing in the French calendar that can be turned into a commercial holiday. 

I'm all settled into my Parisian home, although I've been having some serious problems working the washing machine. As a result, I've managed to dye all of my underwear and white clothes a not-so-attractive shade of blue. For a girl who came to Paris with not too many shirts, most of which were originally white or a variation of white, this has been a problem. Given the wild fluctuations in the Euro-CAD exchange rate lately, shopping to replace my wardrobe is not really an option, so I've had to resort to creative layering to try to hide the weird blue stains all over my shirts. Luckily, I should be starting work at Starbucks this week (I have an 'interview' this Thursday, but it's really just a session for the store manager to make sure that my paperwork to work in France is all in order), and will then soon be able to hit the Parisian shops and piece together a brand new winter wardrobe worthy of the streets of Paris. 

Speaking of paperwork, I've been here for just under two months now, and I'm just finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of filing away my paperwork. I've got a bank account, a student number, a student card, a social security number, personal liability insurance, and applications in the works for my long-stay visa and student housing allowance. Let it be known that there is a ridiculous amount of paperwork involved when one wants to spend any length of time living in France. It took me an extra-long time to get my carte de séjour stuff sorted out because there were problems with my birth certificate that required making an appointment at the Canadian embassy to get an attestation de naissance  before i could proceed with my application. FYI for any Ontario-born Canadians looking to get anything done in France, make sure you have a copy of the long-form of your birth certificate with both of your parents' names on it, otherwise you too will have to get friendly with the embassy staff.

I've not been very good about updating this blog. I've been finding it a little/lot harder to write this time around (compared to my last blogging experience during my Summer '07 trip), perhaps because my days are not filled with exciting, one of a kind experiences, but instead involve the mundanities of daily life, such as going to school, reading, grocery shopping, etc... things that I feel most people wouldn't be so interested in reading about. That being said, life in Paris is definitely blog-worthy, and I will start to make the effort to write about it more often.