home and away.

I feel homesick tonight.
As I rode the metro home, after a full day of classes and a meeting with our program director, I longed to see a familiar face among the strangers.
It's funny to think that when planning to study abroad, one never really pictures having to go to buy books for class, or dedicating a few hours a week to actually doing homework. Although Villanova generously requests only a "C" in order for credits to transfer, finding out that I'm going to be expected to read a novel in French per week is overwhelming.
And so, as I left Gibert Joseph with more looseleaf that's the wrong size, a wave of longing came over me; longing for my own bed, my family, my friends... even for classes at Villanova, where I can fully express my ideas without stumbling over vocabulary and complicated verb conjugation.

Tonight, home just seems further than usual.

slacker.

That's what I feel like. I mean to update this silly website every day, and by the time I have a free moment, I find myself asleep.


The sky is hanging heavily over Paris today, but I find myself really enamored of this weather. It's very mild, as it usually is when the clouds come, and the possibility of rain lingers but I don't mind, because I've learned my lesson and always carry my little umbrella when I leave the foyer.


Where to begin?


This past weekend was really great. I turned 21 on Sunday, and apart from the generic celebrations that are to be expected, both Matt and dad were here, which just made the weekend that much better. It was very strange, all the same, to find myself surrounded by new faces, and I really did miss celebrating with everyone from home. I can't say I regret not being able to hit all the Villanova hotspots-- there'll be plenty of time for that once June rolls around.

Matt arrived with perfect timing on Thursday the 14th. By the time I met him at the Gare du Nord, it was already 10pm, so we found his hotel and then went for a bite to eat. We spent the weekend sightseeing and strolling around.


Friday was quite miserable, as the temperature plummeted to a frigid 34 degrees, but we made the most of it anyway, since I had skipped class just for the occasion. Although he's been to Paris before, I think Matt developed an appreciation for the smaller details of life in the city; away from the tourist traps, the smaller little neighborhoods and parks can be such a relief.
On Friday night, we found a little restaurant in the Latin Quarter advertising "la cuisine traditionelle" and had delicious steak, French onion soup (which is just onion soup in France of course), and dessert. As we were eating, the waiter approached me and asked, "Parlez-vous francais?" as I had been slipping in and out of both French and English throughout the night. I replied that I did, and he seemed relieved, then requested that I translate charcuterie into English for some tourists he was serving in the back of the restaurant. It was a proud moment for me, to act as translator for a French waiter in the heart of Paris.

Matt and I visited the military museum on Saturday, where they had a lot of memorabilia from the world wars, as well as the tomb of Napoleon, but unfortunately we forgot to visit the tomb as we'd already spent two hours wandering the other parts of the museum. Afterwards, we met up with dad in the Marais and had a coffee before going to the Hotel de Ville to see a free exhibition of color photos from the early twentieth century here in Paris. It was really interesting to see photos that normally would have been taken in black and white- in color.

Out for birthday dinner with the men in my life!

That night, dad took Matt and I to a very trendy restaurant in the Marais, where the food was so tremendously sculpted that we found it hard to eat! With things like potato marshmallow on the menu, it was, without a doubt, one of the most interesting meals I've ever had. Unfortunately dad was feeling a bit tired after we ate, so he headed back to his hotel while Matt and I met up with some people from the program to celebrate my 21st.

My Italian roommate, Anne

Me, Amanda, Deirdre, Lizzie, Nicole, and Anne

It was a lovely weekend, complete with a big American breakfast at a diner on Sunday morning, called "Breakfast in America". We had massive plates of pancakes and eggs, and real drip coffee! I hadn't realized my craving for non-espresso coffee until the steaming cup was set before me, with free refills at my fingertips.
After Matt boarded the Eurostar to head back under the English Channel on Sunday night, I was left with a very funny feeling. Celebrating a landmark birthday with people I've only known for a few weeks was very different. Once dad and Matt had gone, and I was back in my foyer, I felt quite lonely and really wished that my whole family and all my friends from home could have been here. I got some lovely phonecalls from Ju and Paula which really cheered me up, but I was quite homesick and missing everyone a lot. At least Matt and dad came; having bits of my life from home around made it a really special occasion.
Thank you for all your good wishes!

This week saw, at last, the grand finale of my seven-week French intensive language program. After a month in Tours and three weeks here in Paris, I'm just about ready to swear off the language classes altogether. We celebrated with white wine and Indian snacks today at the Catho-- I really enjoyed the class, despite the long hours and often-boring lessons. It's hard to believe that while some people are beginning spring break this week, my "real" semester doesn't start until Monday!
One of our teachers, Julie, is studying English and international relations, and hopes to get a job as a representative in South Africa, so she asked myself and the other girls from Central to have lunch with her today to do a little language exchange; half an hour in French, and then half in English. Unfortunately it didn't work out because she had some administrative stuff to do for the end of term, but she took down our email addresses and we'll hopefully see her later in the semester.

Everyone from my class at the Catho
Julie, the teacher is in front in grey

After classes I met up with my friend Jayne, and her boyfriend, who are both studying in Strasbourg. We had coffee at Les Deux Magots, a "literary" cafe where Hemingway and his cronies spent their days. It's now pretty much just a giant tourist trap, where cappuccinos cost 6 euros and the service is inattentive, but I guess the coffee was pretty good (I have to say that, it cost six euros).

Although the days are long and June seems very far away, time is going quickly. Villanova's spring break starts next Friday, which means a stream of visitors for me! De arrives next weekend, and then after she leaves, the majority of Welsh 312 will be here! Colleen, Becky, and Maura are coming from London and staying through Sunday. I cannot wait to see their faces!

I'm looking forward to the start of the real semester on Monday-- to me, it means I can finally settle into a semi-permanent routine and find time to sleep! With my schedule the way it is, I only have to get up for 9 a.m. classes twice a week, and Fridays are free.

Because we're staying in town this weekend, my friend Lizzie and I are planning on doing a bit of exploring tomorrow and on Sunday. Although there's snow on the ground in Philadelphia, the forecast promises 60 degrees in Paris tomorrow, and I think Montmartre is calling.

Book recommendation of the week: McCarthy's Bar, by Pete McCarthy. Absolutely hilarious.

a word on the wonder that is "la crepe".

I made Sunday a productive day. After paying 7 euros for tokens and discovering that the ONE washing machine and dryer for all 180 residents of the foyer was all booked up for the day, I headed around the corner to spend another six euros at the laundromat. After spreading my jeans out on the heater in my room after an unsuccessful two spins in the dryer, I showered and decided to take the metro to a stop I'd never been to before, right off ligne 4, a pretty direct cut through the heart of touristy Paris.

Line 4 hits a lot of the hot-spots listed in guidebooks: the boulevard St. Michel, St. Germain, Chatelet which leads you right to the Hotel de Ville, etc. It's hellish in the morning, when people are crammed up against the windows like a full glass jar of olives, and businessmen and university students struggle to open their "journal quotidien" to catch up on daily news.

Paris is, however, quite pleasant on Sunday afternoons. The tourists are still around, but I really can't totally exclude myself from those map-reading, photo-taking, overly-chatty crowds because I, like them, am continually awestruck and find it hard to keep my eyes to the ground, in classic Parisian style, as I walk around town.

After walking around the 14th arrondissement for a little while, I decided that, although I have given up chocolate for Lent, my penance for 60 of my limited days in Paris absolutely can NOT extend to Nutella filled crepes. With cold hands from the February air, I fumbled for my precious Carte Orange (my monthly metro pass) and in two minutes, had descended the stairs into the nutty, warm smell of the metro once again.

I rode for about twenty minutes, up to St. Michel, an area I knew that vendors found many tourists, lusting for all things Parisian, to prey upon. With my back to the fountain on the boulevard, which had been filled with bubbles one morning last summer, a large jar with a recognizable red, white, and black label caught my eye.

NUTELLA.

As I anxiously stood in line, two euro coins warm in my palm, I looked on in disbelief as the couple in front of me ordered galettes, savory crepes featuring some mixture of egg, ham, and cheese. With a sweet, oozing Nutella crepe on my mind, I couldn't imagine how anyone could order anything else.

After an agonizing wait, my turn had arrived. One word was all the man needed; I suppose the look in my eyes said the rest. I handed over my money, and at last, the heat from this glorious treat warmed my palms.

I have to announce my disclaimer here:
Stephen Cloughley makes a damn good crepe. On Sunday mornings in the Cloughley house, the big red one with the white trim, you will often find four (sometimes five or more) people happily munching on crepes that have been absolutely perfected over a year or so.

HOWEVER...

No amount of persuasion, or of Dad's masterpieces (sorry dad), could convince me that there is anything better than standing in the middle of the Latin Quarter in Paris, understanding what the man behind the counter just said to me in French, and seeing the color of the Nutella turn another shade of brown inside the crisp shell of the crepe.

I knew it was perfect as I licked the dregs off my now toasty hands, and I got that feeling-- I could drink three liters of water right now.

And so I've decided that Sunday will be crepe day. And if I have a previous engagement, crepe day will be moved accordingly. Also, if I have visitors, I will eat a crepe every day with aforementioned guest... the best hostess should, of course, show Paris in all its glory-- encased in a white paper triangle, crispy around the edges, and oozing with molten Nutella.

ups & downs

Somewhere among the 6 hours of French class (five days a week), evening soirees in the kitchen upstairs, a lack of constant internet connection, and being too tired at the end of each day to make the effort, I'm afraid this poor blog has suffered.

I have so much to say and I don't really know where to begin!
Because the spring term at l'Institut Catholique, or "Catho", runs from the beginning of March until the end of May, we American students have been placed into another month-long language intensive program here in Paris. This means that myself, three others from my group, and thirteen others (who range from Asian missionary priests to Swedish students taking a gap year) take French classes from 9-12 in the morning, and 2-5 in the afternoon. It's really tiring, but good I suppose.

Class is just so amusing.

There's a residential building near the Catho called MEP, which stands for Mission Etrangee de Paris, and the mission itself invites citizens of India, China, Vietnam, and other Asian countries to come to Paris, learn French, and continue their mission work, enriched with the ability to speak another language. This means that Kissinger, Joseph from Vietnam, Mien Chieng, Joseph from China, Dominic, and Stanislaus, all in the same class as me, are here in France to learn French and continue theological study.

I have never been so amused in a class before. Although the dynamic here is very different from the mostly-American-college-student classes in Tours, the differences are all positive and so interesting. For example:
I don't know if all these guys had a chance to continue their studies during their twenties. Now, these 30-40 year old men act like seventh graders during class. They really enjoy whispering the answers to each other when asked a question by the teacher, or poking fun at each other's responses and accents. Observing these guys who have come from so many different countries in one place, speaking a common language, is really something.

Speaking of which, I've recently realized an aspect of French, or foreign languages in general, that I never understood before. It may sound odd, but, in the past, in high school and even into college, learning a foreign language was something extra that happened only while in actual classes. Now, I've begun to understand that French isn't just a language I can learn for three hours a week in an American university-- here, it's an actual form of communication. In order for me to convey any sort of idea to the Indian and Vietnamese people in my class, I have to speak French, and they have to understand.

I guess I just never really perceived the language in that way before.

Here in Paris, I live in the 8th arrondissement, which places me just a fifteen minute walk north of the Champs Elysees. The building I live in, the Foyer de Naples, is close to the metro and 180 students from many different universities and nationalities are housed here during the semester. I live with an Italian girl named Anne from Milan, who studies theatre at the university in Bologna. She's here until July through Erasmus, a European student exchange program. I like her a lot; as far as roommates go, she's been really easy to live with so far and I hope we can start hanging out more when I begin my classes and electives in March.
We speak a mixture of French and English with each other, and late at night she occasionally slips into Italian, but I try to remember as much Italian as I can and we communicate just fine. I hope I can start Italian cooking lessons with her!


After a rather shady exchange last week in the St. Sulpice metro station with a stranger named Alain, I bought three tickets to the France/Ireland 6 Nations rugby match that took place today. Dad arrived this morning, much to my relief. It was really nice to see his familiar face walking into the foyer, and after quickly changing into my Ireland jersey, we walked into the city and had a coffee near the Champs Elysee before heading to L'Entrecote, a famous steak frites restaurant, for lunch. At noon exactly, a line had already formed outside the building, as they don't accept reservations there. Once dad and I had informed the waitress how we wanted our steak cooked, we settled down to enjoy a delicious meal of salad with dressing and walnuts (Mum you've done a great job of recreating it, by the way. I meant to tell you that!) We shared a small bottle of red wine, and then walked down to an Irish pub called James Joyce for a pint before meeting dad's friend Steve for the match.

The weather was absolutely beautiful today, so dad and I really enjoyed hanging around Paris for the day, and once Steve joined us, we each had a beer outside the stadium before the match began. Although Ireland lost, it ended up being a good game and it was really exciting to see it in person after so many trips to Philadelphia to watch games on TV in Fado!

I've never heard so much English spoken in Paris before. The metro was packed with Irish rugby supporters all day. Even after we lost, everyone was in a jovial mood, including the waiters at an Algerian restaurant where we had couscous and North African dishes for dinner.

It's funny how sports bring people together. Even the playful jabs that the Frenchies had been making at us all day were in good fun, and from the old man in a cafe this morning to the French family at the couscous restaurant tonight, the French were generally really receptive to the Irish presence in Paris today.

On the RER ride home from the stadium, a group of Irish people broke out into ballads, shattering the usually silent train ride. When they started "Molly Malone", I couldn't help but join in.

For the first time in a long time, I felt strangely at peace. My schedule may be demanding, the language and the people may be challenging, but today I felt comfortable as I straddled that line between Paris, and home.

a rough start...

Bonjour from Paris!

It's been a rough few days, settling in to a new place much bigger than Tours. On Saturday night, I left my bag (and worse, the bag that Matt gave me for Christmas) in a taxi after a night out at our friend Michael's friend's apartment. My credit card, camera, metro pass, and "plan de Paris" are all gone, and the bag too.

Things are being dealt with, but there's no worse feeling than being alone in these kind of situations. Thankfully my phone was in my coat pocket, so that was saved, but everything else is gone. As soon as we exited the cab and it pulled away, I realized everything was gone and in a futile attempt, I ran after it, in heels, on the cobblestone street and wrenched my ankle.

Paris is charming and can win my heart back within 20 minutes, but yesterday, it seemed just like every other large, cold, city.

I don't think I will ever lose anything ever again.

And now, I'm using free WiFi at a McDonald's one block from the Champs Elysee, because my foyer does not have any reliable internet. It blows my mind that a residence for students doesn't have working internet-- hopefully I don't have to do much research for classes or anything.

Anyway, I'm in Paris for goodness' sake. It just wasn't the smoothest of beginnings.

I'll try to update with more positive details soon... Bises!