I can’t believe this is the last week I have in class. I have less than a week—three days of class. I have to concentrate. On all of the things I have to do. My astro paper, preparing for my French final, saying goodbye to my friends. Enjoying Paris.
It’s so much. And it goes so quickly. No use groaning. Get out there, finish the 2000 word paper, have good times with people I’ve made connections with.
I graduated last year—today. Around this time, too. Wow.
Friends
Dinner at my professor’s house tomorrow night. He’s such a cool guy. Very cognizant, sharp and aware of each of us as people. He has a sheet on which he wrote down adjectives about each of us. I don’t know what he says about me, but I don’t know if I want to. Maybe.
Cosmology is fascinating.
The universe is expanding! So quickly! Being so small is crushing and invigorating. I’m thinking of writing my final paper on dark flow, which is the acceleration of all the galaxies in the observable universe to a point outside of the cosmological horizon. So we don’t know where they’re going. Wow.
Night!
7th week travel!
This morning, I went to a flea market with three other girls. Two, I’ve known for a little while because they’re in my program, the other, I haven’t. It was very strange. I find that people say they value certain things, and then double back on it. They have such different perspectives. Such different points of view. Different backgrounds, too. I know that’s not new, but meeting someone that thinks fashion is suspicious and food is just sustenance strikes me as strange. Especially meeting them in France. In Paris! Paris is for food and fashion.
Ugh, I dunno. Just weird. And I’m always very quiet when I’m around them, but I feel like that might be ok. Because they’ll think I’m quiet. And I am, but not as quiet as I am around them.
Alright! Time to go eat lunch. Yum.
Yesterday was a national holiday here in France. Doesn’t seem like anything that would ever happen in the US. I walked out into a beautiful day with lots of big, white clouds. I walked through a Socialist rally that took up half of Paris. I ate some delicious steak with salad and mashed potatoes. Good ice cream. Walking and looking at the sky. Wow, it was fantastic. I’ve never seen as many people out in the streets.
In other news, I’m going to Stockholm, Prague and Berlin for 7th week! Aah! Things are changing so quickly. Our second class is over on Friday. I went to a classical music concert at Saint-Chapelle today. I don’t know very much about classical music, but it was incredible to hear surrounded by so much gorgeous light.
Do not eat in the restaurant and have to wait to go to the bathroom because two girls are having a deep conversation in the one stall.
Do not take deep breaths when passing the fountains.
Do not go inside the palace.
Do not become overwhelmed. Stay calm and take deep breath even though people teem past and tourguides wave sticks and umbrellas in the air to guide their specific gaggle of camera toting, ever flashing Japanese tourists.
Do not let the palace ruin your day. Go on a boat on the canal and try to row and enjoy it and don’t run into other boats.
I went on a great food tour today. We walked through Les Halles and had delicious cheese and rum baba and good wine. Afterwards, I just wanted to pick up the phone and call someone, smile through the phone. But my phone doesn’t work internationally, so I just walked through the rain.
And that’s ok.
Paris is a bittersweet city.
so we were gonna go to this jazz club and dance
we take the tram and I’m still weirded out because this guy in my program had just tried to convert me to catholicism
some crazyness
i just came for coffee, after lunch. not a proselytizing experience
so i’m weirded out on the tram going to jazz whatever
with these girls who are flaky and granola and go hiking and aspire to look like the Andrews sisters
which is cool, i guess
we get off at the last stop
and walk along the river
but then the sidewalk we’re walking along runs out and we’re in the median in a highway
like, a freeway
so we run across the street and end up on the border of a construction site
and we’re walking along, lost. next to some cement trucks.
which I don’t really care about but Lucie (this girl in my program) is freaking out about
and we ask at this gas station and they direct us and we run around this weird, ghosty financial district
looking for this jazz place
and we find it! after being weirdly given directions by this dude outside a Japanese restaurant
and we find it!
but it turns out to be super swanky!
like really really fancy. it has a coat check and valet parking and everything.
and they check our coats and give us this waxy prix-fixe menu. For 40e. And all the businessmen and their fancy wives stare at us while their little children eat mountainous desserts. and the granola girls eat the olives bread at our table. we’re sitting there, whispering loudly in English, they’re munching on the bread. the music is good but we couldn’t stay. so we walk out and uncheck our coats and run back to the train station because now it’s raining.
Later that day, the day we went to the market, we went to this contemporary art museum. Since it was Sunday and it was open. And I really didn’t want to go because we had just gone to a museum and it took us forever to get there and most of the time museums aren’t engaging. Maybe that’s uncultured of me to say, but I really feel it. This exhibit, though. Wow. I loved it. I’m going to buy a poster and put it up in my room. Incredible and sizzling.
