Parislog 12
Mar. 27th

It has been a while since I was last able to write. As it takes me about an hour to write this, I don't feel comfortable doing it while F* is here because I feel like I am in his territory etc. He has been staying here most of the time the last few days but today he is finally leaving for the afternoon and I can write for a while. Such are the hazards of roommates. It is difficult especially at first figuring out all the social boundaries.

I do now have my computer here. It arrived in the second box to show up. I went and bought a flat screen monitor for only 200€ at a store called FNAC. It is the megalopolis of electrical stuff here. I have no idea what the letters stand for but whatever. I also had to get a different plug-in cord for the computer but that was cheap at only 7€ but I had to go to another store. This one was BHV. This is the “Bazar de l'Hotel de Ville”. It was opened in 1856, the third department store to be created here after the Bon Marché and Les Magasins du Louvre.

So the computer is up and running but I can't get the internet up and running yet. The CD for Wanadoo (internet service here) isn't being automatically read and it wants me to choose a program. I don't want to do something by hazard and get a bad result. I have a couple of contacts that might be able to help me though and they speak English. Yeah! Some things are just too much to try in another language as of yet and computer stuff is one of them.

Saturday night, I was invited to A*'s place for a dinner party of 8. I was a little nervous because it is hard enough to talk to one person in French let alone a group. I took the RER out to Boissy St. Legère and she picked me up at the station. I was told by the metro people that it would take an hour and it took 30 minutes so I had a little wait but it was okay because it gave me a chance to just people watch. It is a very tiny suburb that she lives in and very pleasant.

Just after 8, about 8:10 to 8:15 everyone arrived almost all together. There must be an unwritten code to show up 10 minutes after the specified time. It turned out that everyone who came were very kind to me and patient with my bumbling around in the language. There was a couple with two children and a couple who were pregnant. The woman who was pregnant was an English teacher so she helped out when I couldn't find word I needed. Dinner was a raclette. It was the first one that I had ever been too and it is fun, and tasty. The cheese is really stinky but it tastes as good as it is stinky. For those of you who, like me, have never done a raclette, you have a plate of things like potatoes and slices of salami and ham. You also have a little personal tray on which you place the cheese and then the cheese goes in a table heater until it is bubbling. Then you take it a pour it over the food on your plate. I am salivating just writing about it.

It is interesting too that what I read in the books about the culture isn't always true. For example, I read that you weren't supposed to bring anything to dinners because the host had planned everything out and it would be rude to presume that your choice of wine or flowers etc would go. Both couples brought bottles of wine. I guess there are all sorts of circumstances but I now know that bringing something can be okay.

There was a free exhibit of Swedish style at the Hotel de Ville. I was most interested by the look of the Swedish style presented up against the ancient building.

On one of my strolls around town, I managed to find my way to the famous Berthillion ice cream place on the Ile de la Cité. I decided to try the ice cream, duh. I had a caramel salé, which means salted, and was thoroughly impressed. It was 2€ for one scoop. Take your time and enjoy it. Next, I will have to try a chocolate, as that is my specialty. Then I can really tell how good they are.

More metro stuff. When you stand still on the street in certain places you can feel the trains go by under your feet. It isn't like maybe you feel it, you know and you can hear the rumble. When you are inside the tunnels you can feel and hear them go overhead and underneath, depending on where you are. It can be a bit disconcerting.

There are condom dispensers everywhere. They are on the streets and in the metro. I didn't look to see how much they are. I will let you know another time.

Another lovely surprise is that all calls here are charged by the minute not just the long distance. You have a base service price and then every minute. Plus you don't get the bill but every two months so I am kind of clueless as to how much it actually costs to use the phone. I read the France telecom site and I think it is a cent a minute and if you call a cell it is 9 cents a minute. Then there is the call to the US at an unknown amount but I am hoping for 10 cents a minute of less but prepared for up to a euro a minute just in case.

One of the walking adventures that I took was to an area that is supposed to be the garment district. It is but it also appears to be the hooker district. It has the coolest clothes that I have seen in town if you like a sense of different and artistic to your pieces. I can't wait to go back and check the stores out a little more thoroughly and see what the prices are. It is off the beaten track so maybe they are a good deal. And you have to dodge the sex trade to get in. Every few doorways along that section there would be a woman, mostly of a certain age, standing there obviously looking for business. Very made up and very hookerish outfits. Crazy.

I have gone to a few lectures to try to improve my listening skills. They are very erudite even when it is a talk on dance. I think that if I was just simply going to hear the talk, I might be really bored but I am not certain, as I can't really understand that well yet. There are tons and tons of lectures going on and there is a whole magazine just for events like that.
It is called Conférences & Débats.

So far, from what I can tell, it is different with the schools too. There isn't the same system of open classes that one can take if they are willing to pay.
Most of the Universities seem to be either you are they full time or you aren't there at all. When I went to the Beaux Arts, I was too old to attend. That was weird. I may be getting it wrong due to my lack of language skills. They do have some adult education through the city and the Beaux Arts does have couple of classes also but when I went to the Beaux Arts building for decorative arts they had nothing for adults. Sigh.