yesterday continued: singing vikings and edith pilaf
Thursday March 22nd, 2007 was truly a magical day.
It didn’t start out magically; it started out with a heinous grammar midterm. Our speaking midterm was on Tuesday and thankfully that went pretty well, but the grammar midterm… grammar’s just heinous on principle. Espeically when you’re dealing with things like when to use ‘pendant,’ ‘depuis,’ and ‘pour.’ We could hear the peacocks throughout the exam, grunt/warbling in the courtyard. I don’t know what it is about study abroad programs and peacocks, but there are peacocks at my school in Toulouse, as well as there were peacocks at the castle. I mean, the castle sort of made sense because they imported all sorts of exotic birds to make it more luxurious. But the day when a few of us turned the corner in Toulouse, and there, standing dead-center in the hallway beneath the enormous World War Two memorial plaque, was a peacock, now that’s a little weirder. Apparently the peacocks wander freely over from the Jardin des Plantes next door.
So after the horrendous grammar exam, we tried for the third time this week to go to one of our favorite lunch places, Chez Pépé, which only has about six tables, so is always packed around one o’clock. The food is really simple, but always so fresh and carefully made, and Pépé’s wife always gives us random little French lessons. So today, we forced ourselves to wait half an hour and by the time we got there we were able to snag a table and I had the most delicious tomato, cucumber and feta sandwich, and then Starr and I split a piece of the flourless chocolate cake, it’s so good to be friends with someone who also so thoroughly enjoys their desserts. Starr and I share a passionate, consuming love for chocolate croissants, blueberry tarts and basically anything chocolate. Starr is also obsessed with dipping fried foods in ranch dressing, which is something I highly respect.
Then after lunch we saw this RIDICULOUS/amazing street performer. Before we turned the corner into Place des Carmes, we hear this beautiful, high operatic voice, and of course Christina turns to me and hisses “It’s Pilaf!” and then once we turn the corner we see this big guy, with a shaved head and a beaded goatee, with massive tattooed forearms, sitting on this wooden, Viking throne-stool that looked something you’d spend a thousand dollars on at the Renaissance Festival. And he was playing this medieval looking lute guitar, and had bells around his ankles. But we didn’t see the girl who was singing with him, and we kept looking around for her in confusion, and then we realized that HE was the one singing in the high, operatic soprano. It was too freaking weird to wrap your mind around. And I *like* girly-man singers! But just the contrast of this enormous, manly, Viking guy, with this high, feminine voice coming out of his goateed mouth, it was like breaking my brain. I had to sit and stare at him for a good two minutes before I could belief it was happening. And then Christina and I stayed and watched him for a while, because he was really good! And it was a lot of 12th, 13th century medieval sounding type stuff, but it was just beautiful. He had a little trunk with cds for sale, but they were 18 euros, and I was like ‘honey, I won’t even shell out 12 euros for the new bloc party cd’ but I did write his name down, so maybe we can track him down on the internet. He had settled himself in the perfect location too, at the base of the beautiful fountain in the middle of the square, and it sounded like he was using a microphone, the acoustics were so good! Oh, no, and then, maybe my favorite detail was that his coin-collecting device, was this little golden chalice set on a piece of FUR! He was like a gypsy, Viking chief gone-bard and dropped into the wrong century. But he was a great performer, completely comfortable with the crowd and he had the deepest speaking voice! Of course. Anyway, he freaking ruled. I took pictures of him, but *sigh* I lost the free internet access I was stealing in Clémentine’s house which previously allowed me to update all those pictures. Now that I don’t have it, it takes about a million years to put up one photo, because I have to go find the file in my computer (which takes HOURS) and then copy it on to a USB port and THEN put it on Clémentine’s computer, and then individually upload each one. Anyway, just be patient, and you too will witness Gypsy Viking King.
Then I said goodbye to Christina because she had to go home and write a few job applications, but as we were walking back to Esquirole, we saw this random beautiful archway with an intriguing courtyard through the other side. So I decided to see what was on the other side. I wandered in and up some stairs and there was this incredible museum! That I had never heard of. It was only 2.50 for me being a student and it was an amazing museum. They had all the different rooms arranged by theme, starting with the Renaissance and Louis XIV and then moving on to the Pointilism Room and the Impressionism Room and the Drawing Room. And the museum is housed in this beautiful old building, with ripply glass windows and Toulousian rose tiled roofs. And they had drawings by Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso. It was fantastic.
Then I wandered gleefully over to one of my favorite locations in Toulouse, which is the English bookshop (shhh don't tell the SIT people I'm going to an English bookstore) but it's pretty glorious there. It is there where Jenna’s Christmas present still patiently waits along with a copy of Wind in the Willows illustrated by E.H.Shepard which I need to read this summer, and a new book by Tracy Chevalier which is about William Blake. And all these beautiful copies of Lord of the Rings and just, everything you could want. Every time I go in there I basically die of happiness, it is so wonderful.
Toulouse is sort of like Hogwarts in that you can walk down the same street like a million times and never notice a tea shop or a bookstore, and then one day you you'll just see it, as if it magically appeared there. Or streets move, you think you'll know where a certain street is and then the next day it won't be there and two weeks later it will reappear again. A few weeks ago Christina and I found this beatuiful street with this yellow-blossomed tree dangling over a brick wall, and I rediscovered it yesterday and found this incredible tea shop with tiers of pastries in the window and painted teapots and pleasant little tables inside. I also went to this really good juice bar and got banana, pineapple and orange juice, in a TO GO CUP! Marvel of marvels, you cannot find 'to-go' drinks in France. People don't like frantically rushing around there, they sit down and drink their coffee, it's unheard of to walk around with a cup of coffee in hand, savage!
After that (still on the same magical street), went to that MARVELOUS paper/notebook store that is filled with handmade notebooks, and locally made notebooks of all different shapes, sizes, and purposes. Had to physically restrain myself from buying this thin pale pink notebook with a print of Marie Antoinette type ladies. AND there are so many perfect notebooks for putting photographs in, that I am going to have to buy. And the ZAP notebooks. And future christmas presents for people, ahem.
Then I went to St. Sernin, then went to the new bibliothèque, then rode my bike home, then had dinner with Clémentine, then went out to Zenith's house with Hillary and Peter and Dan. IT was a highly enjoyable day.
Blgrah, there were so many other things I was going to say, like our hiking trip to FOIX last weekend, Emily, Christina, Hillary and I went and had such a good time, interacting with moutons and wild ponies an dlooking at the majestic views, even though I am SO out of shape from all this croissant eating that I nearly didn't make it up the mountain. Not to mention that the others were skilled hikers, Christina worked in a national park last summer. It rocked. OOh and went to a two euro Berlioz concert.
Just think, if the two cultures combined, we could eat PAIN AU CHOCOLATS and drink ICED COFFEE at the same time! Can you imagine? Oh God, never mind, it would actually be too much to handle.
THe biggest movie in France right now is La Môme, and it's about the life of Edith Piaf, big French singer from the 50's. So of course I went to see it, since I started listening to her music ever since we heard Milord in my ninth grade French class. I went to see the movie with Emily and Christina and before the movie Christina was explaining to her host brother that she was going to see the movie about that French singer, Pilaff. Which of course is hilarious, possibly because rice pilaf is very tasty, possibly because the word pilaf is just hilarious.
The film is really good, it is especially spectacular, wow well the lead actress does, it is re-fucking-markable how she became the character. Really stunning. But anyway, all that aside, there’s this scene in the movie when young Pilaf and her friend are running frantically up that famous long staircase in Montmartre. And for some reason it’s an extremely awkward run, they jsut have these stupid grins on their faces, and one of them is clutching a wine bottle and there's a lot of elbows involved. Now, just hang with me, and there will be a connection: We are always so hungry when we get out of lunch because we eat French breakfasts (which is basically just coffee) at 7:30 and then get out of class around 1pm. We’re also in an area where there are not many restaurants around, so it’s a good ten minute walk to get food. UNLESS! You eat at the SNACK VAN as I call it (in reality, referred to by the French people as Le Camion), it’s this orange van that sits on the edge of the parking lot and surprisingly they offer a pretty wide selection of delicious items (for a French lunch van that is) Such as four different kinds of cold sandwiches, four different kinds of panini, three different salads, French fries, apple tart!, yogurt and candy bars. It’s pretty vast. And the french fries are rather marvelous. And of course, the most important detail, it’s not expensive. So the other day, when we got out of class, Christina and I were so hungry that we couldn’t contain ourselves and just went tearing frantically through the parking lot with our bags swinging and in the midst of our gangling gallop Christina bursts out ‘We’re just like Pilaf!’ This dual image kept me laughing all day. I kept doing a Jean where I’d just think of it randomly later on and start laughing to myself.
The movie is pretty prime. I actually caved the other day and got the soundtrack which is SO GOOD. My original Edith Piaf CD is somewhere at home and I was thinking about going to Médiatheque and getting one but there was one song from the movie that I’m basically obsessed with which is so old I don’t even know if a recording of it still exists, I used one of my student discount cards so it only ended up being 11 euros AND it has 27 tracks! It’s also good because they went through and digitaly cleaned up all the original recordings for the movie, so the songs aren’t as scratchy and aged as before. The score for the movie is also beautiful, so anyway it was a good deal. And I’m obsessed with this one song and can’t stop singing it all the time. I CAN’T STOP PLAYING IT, I wish I could just put it on loop all day. Which is sort of the same way I’ve been listening to the new My Chemical Romance album. And then today I heard someone whistling La Vie En Rose while outside of this random independent movie theater. It was pretty exciting because I always obsessively want to whistle that song, but feel like I’m being cliché, being in France and all. Sort of like how I also always get La Marseilles stuck in my head and want to whistle that. Anyway, I'm not the only one.
I've decided Jenna has to come to France immediately because it is a land where dogs roam the streets freely and everyone is obsessed with cheese.
Ahh, I guess that's all I have time for, I have to pack tonight! And am going over to Hillary's later to bake banana bread, bahh and ahve to bike all the way to médiatheque in the rain to return library books. Anywyay folks, this is it for a while, I will be completely without contact ablitity until April 3rd, so wish me luck!
I MISS YOU!
It didn’t start out magically; it started out with a heinous grammar midterm. Our speaking midterm was on Tuesday and thankfully that went pretty well, but the grammar midterm… grammar’s just heinous on principle. Espeically when you’re dealing with things like when to use ‘pendant,’ ‘depuis,’ and ‘pour.’ We could hear the peacocks throughout the exam, grunt/warbling in the courtyard. I don’t know what it is about study abroad programs and peacocks, but there are peacocks at my school in Toulouse, as well as there were peacocks at the castle. I mean, the castle sort of made sense because they imported all sorts of exotic birds to make it more luxurious. But the day when a few of us turned the corner in Toulouse, and there, standing dead-center in the hallway beneath the enormous World War Two memorial plaque, was a peacock, now that’s a little weirder. Apparently the peacocks wander freely over from the Jardin des Plantes next door.
So after the horrendous grammar exam, we tried for the third time this week to go to one of our favorite lunch places, Chez Pépé, which only has about six tables, so is always packed around one o’clock. The food is really simple, but always so fresh and carefully made, and Pépé’s wife always gives us random little French lessons. So today, we forced ourselves to wait half an hour and by the time we got there we were able to snag a table and I had the most delicious tomato, cucumber and feta sandwich, and then Starr and I split a piece of the flourless chocolate cake, it’s so good to be friends with someone who also so thoroughly enjoys their desserts. Starr and I share a passionate, consuming love for chocolate croissants, blueberry tarts and basically anything chocolate. Starr is also obsessed with dipping fried foods in ranch dressing, which is something I highly respect.
Then after lunch we saw this RIDICULOUS/amazing street performer. Before we turned the corner into Place des Carmes, we hear this beautiful, high operatic voice, and of course Christina turns to me and hisses “It’s Pilaf!” and then once we turn the corner we see this big guy, with a shaved head and a beaded goatee, with massive tattooed forearms, sitting on this wooden, Viking throne-stool that looked something you’d spend a thousand dollars on at the Renaissance Festival. And he was playing this medieval looking lute guitar, and had bells around his ankles. But we didn’t see the girl who was singing with him, and we kept looking around for her in confusion, and then we realized that HE was the one singing in the high, operatic soprano. It was too freaking weird to wrap your mind around. And I *like* girly-man singers! But just the contrast of this enormous, manly, Viking guy, with this high, feminine voice coming out of his goateed mouth, it was like breaking my brain. I had to sit and stare at him for a good two minutes before I could belief it was happening. And then Christina and I stayed and watched him for a while, because he was really good! And it was a lot of 12th, 13th century medieval sounding type stuff, but it was just beautiful. He had a little trunk with cds for sale, but they were 18 euros, and I was like ‘honey, I won’t even shell out 12 euros for the new bloc party cd’ but I did write his name down, so maybe we can track him down on the internet. He had settled himself in the perfect location too, at the base of the beautiful fountain in the middle of the square, and it sounded like he was using a microphone, the acoustics were so good! Oh, no, and then, maybe my favorite detail was that his coin-collecting device, was this little golden chalice set on a piece of FUR! He was like a gypsy, Viking chief gone-bard and dropped into the wrong century. But he was a great performer, completely comfortable with the crowd and he had the deepest speaking voice! Of course. Anyway, he freaking ruled. I took pictures of him, but *sigh* I lost the free internet access I was stealing in Clémentine’s house which previously allowed me to update all those pictures. Now that I don’t have it, it takes about a million years to put up one photo, because I have to go find the file in my computer (which takes HOURS) and then copy it on to a USB port and THEN put it on Clémentine’s computer, and then individually upload each one. Anyway, just be patient, and you too will witness Gypsy Viking King.
Then I said goodbye to Christina because she had to go home and write a few job applications, but as we were walking back to Esquirole, we saw this random beautiful archway with an intriguing courtyard through the other side. So I decided to see what was on the other side. I wandered in and up some stairs and there was this incredible museum! That I had never heard of. It was only 2.50 for me being a student and it was an amazing museum. They had all the different rooms arranged by theme, starting with the Renaissance and Louis XIV and then moving on to the Pointilism Room and the Impressionism Room and the Drawing Room. And the museum is housed in this beautiful old building, with ripply glass windows and Toulousian rose tiled roofs. And they had drawings by Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso. It was fantastic.
Then I wandered gleefully over to one of my favorite locations in Toulouse, which is the English bookshop (shhh don't tell the SIT people I'm going to an English bookstore) but it's pretty glorious there. It is there where Jenna’s Christmas present still patiently waits along with a copy of Wind in the Willows illustrated by E.H.Shepard which I need to read this summer, and a new book by Tracy Chevalier which is about William Blake. And all these beautiful copies of Lord of the Rings and just, everything you could want. Every time I go in there I basically die of happiness, it is so wonderful.
Toulouse is sort of like Hogwarts in that you can walk down the same street like a million times and never notice a tea shop or a bookstore, and then one day you you'll just see it, as if it magically appeared there. Or streets move, you think you'll know where a certain street is and then the next day it won't be there and two weeks later it will reappear again. A few weeks ago Christina and I found this beatuiful street with this yellow-blossomed tree dangling over a brick wall, and I rediscovered it yesterday and found this incredible tea shop with tiers of pastries in the window and painted teapots and pleasant little tables inside. I also went to this really good juice bar and got banana, pineapple and orange juice, in a TO GO CUP! Marvel of marvels, you cannot find 'to-go' drinks in France. People don't like frantically rushing around there, they sit down and drink their coffee, it's unheard of to walk around with a cup of coffee in hand, savage!
After that (still on the same magical street), went to that MARVELOUS paper/notebook store that is filled with handmade notebooks, and locally made notebooks of all different shapes, sizes, and purposes. Had to physically restrain myself from buying this thin pale pink notebook with a print of Marie Antoinette type ladies. AND there are so many perfect notebooks for putting photographs in, that I am going to have to buy. And the ZAP notebooks. And future christmas presents for people, ahem.
Then I went to St. Sernin, then went to the new bibliothèque, then rode my bike home, then had dinner with Clémentine, then went out to Zenith's house with Hillary and Peter and Dan. IT was a highly enjoyable day.
Blgrah, there were so many other things I was going to say, like our hiking trip to FOIX last weekend, Emily, Christina, Hillary and I went and had such a good time, interacting with moutons and wild ponies an dlooking at the majestic views, even though I am SO out of shape from all this croissant eating that I nearly didn't make it up the mountain. Not to mention that the others were skilled hikers, Christina worked in a national park last summer. It rocked. OOh and went to a two euro Berlioz concert.
Just think, if the two cultures combined, we could eat PAIN AU CHOCOLATS and drink ICED COFFEE at the same time! Can you imagine? Oh God, never mind, it would actually be too much to handle.
THe biggest movie in France right now is La Môme, and it's about the life of Edith Piaf, big French singer from the 50's. So of course I went to see it, since I started listening to her music ever since we heard Milord in my ninth grade French class. I went to see the movie with Emily and Christina and before the movie Christina was explaining to her host brother that she was going to see the movie about that French singer, Pilaff. Which of course is hilarious, possibly because rice pilaf is very tasty, possibly because the word pilaf is just hilarious.
The film is really good, it is especially spectacular, wow well the lead actress does, it is re-fucking-markable how she became the character. Really stunning. But anyway, all that aside, there’s this scene in the movie when young Pilaf and her friend are running frantically up that famous long staircase in Montmartre. And for some reason it’s an extremely awkward run, they jsut have these stupid grins on their faces, and one of them is clutching a wine bottle and there's a lot of elbows involved. Now, just hang with me, and there will be a connection: We are always so hungry when we get out of lunch because we eat French breakfasts (which is basically just coffee) at 7:30 and then get out of class around 1pm. We’re also in an area where there are not many restaurants around, so it’s a good ten minute walk to get food. UNLESS! You eat at the SNACK VAN as I call it (in reality, referred to by the French people as Le Camion), it’s this orange van that sits on the edge of the parking lot and surprisingly they offer a pretty wide selection of delicious items (for a French lunch van that is) Such as four different kinds of cold sandwiches, four different kinds of panini, three different salads, French fries, apple tart!, yogurt and candy bars. It’s pretty vast. And the french fries are rather marvelous. And of course, the most important detail, it’s not expensive. So the other day, when we got out of class, Christina and I were so hungry that we couldn’t contain ourselves and just went tearing frantically through the parking lot with our bags swinging and in the midst of our gangling gallop Christina bursts out ‘We’re just like Pilaf!’ This dual image kept me laughing all day. I kept doing a Jean where I’d just think of it randomly later on and start laughing to myself.
The movie is pretty prime. I actually caved the other day and got the soundtrack which is SO GOOD. My original Edith Piaf CD is somewhere at home and I was thinking about going to Médiatheque and getting one but there was one song from the movie that I’m basically obsessed with which is so old I don’t even know if a recording of it still exists, I used one of my student discount cards so it only ended up being 11 euros AND it has 27 tracks! It’s also good because they went through and digitaly cleaned up all the original recordings for the movie, so the songs aren’t as scratchy and aged as before. The score for the movie is also beautiful, so anyway it was a good deal. And I’m obsessed with this one song and can’t stop singing it all the time. I CAN’T STOP PLAYING IT, I wish I could just put it on loop all day. Which is sort of the same way I’ve been listening to the new My Chemical Romance album. And then today I heard someone whistling La Vie En Rose while outside of this random independent movie theater. It was pretty exciting because I always obsessively want to whistle that song, but feel like I’m being cliché, being in France and all. Sort of like how I also always get La Marseilles stuck in my head and want to whistle that. Anyway, I'm not the only one.
I've decided Jenna has to come to France immediately because it is a land where dogs roam the streets freely and everyone is obsessed with cheese.
Ahh, I guess that's all I have time for, I have to pack tonight! And am going over to Hillary's later to bake banana bread, bahh and ahve to bike all the way to médiatheque in the rain to return library books. Anywyay folks, this is it for a while, I will be completely without contact ablitity until April 3rd, so wish me luck!
I MISS YOU!