joe, the hipster from kansas

Just got back from a concert at Sonic, one of several peniche-style venues here in Lyon. Traversed by two rivers, the lyonnais apparently have a thing for partying on boats. My main draw to the concert was François Virot, who I had seen previously as the drummer of Clara Clara (pictured below) at another concert venue near the Gare de Vaise called Grrrnd Zero.
The set was just so-so (I preferred Clara Clara), but the people watching was excellent. Especially when my friends and I were approached by a hipster couple (Anastasia and Joe) from Kansas. Anastasia was a little tipsy, and was really eager to tell us -- well, anything, really. Joe was wearing those big hipster glasses and a woolen v-neck sweater and talked with a lisp. Ah, what a lovely pair.

missing the but

Two nights ago, my host brother surprised me with an invitation to the Lyon - Marseille football match last night. Olympique Lyonnais is the best team in France, dominating the Ligue de France championships for the last 6 years running. They also play in the Champions League with teams like Manchester United, FC Barcelona, and AC Milan, but have yet to make it past the quarter finals.

Going to a match has been one of my year-long goals, so I was super excited to go. Thanks to a delay in the métro, we arrived at the game about 10 minutes late -- late enough to miss the one and only goal scored in the match. I was too tired to be upset about it, and the rest of the game was pretty fun to watch anyway. I'm a big sports fan, so being in a stadium with 30,000 other screaming fans was definitely an experience to remember.

My host brother and 12 year old host sister who came along argued pretty much throughout the entire match, which I was expecting because they don't get along all too well. It did get pretty annoying at a certain point though - with my host brother overreacting to my host sister's innocent questions and my host sister constantly complaining about not being able to see anything and asking to move further down, closer to the field. Once we had done that, though, she could see even less. Oh, to be young again.

Probably the most eventful thing to happen on my end was having a cigarette thrown into the hood of my coat. The man behind me was nice enough to alert me to the fact that I was on fire, picking the butt out of the folds of my hood. I was kind of in shock and obscenely embarrassed, and could think of nothing else to say aside from a meek 'Merci'. My host brother and sister reacted more appropriately though, verifying to make sure that my hood wasn't still burning -- which, of course, it was because of some left over ashes. They brushed them out, and I sat in my bleacher seat, cool as a clam. Yes, I was so exhausted I didn't even care I was in the process of catching on fire.

As for today, the big headline is the national grève, France's reaction to the economic crisis. Coming back from class today, I told my host mom that I had seen the huge crowd gathered in Place Bellecour, and she told me "But of course! The demonstration! We're really good at that!". Crossing over the Rhône, I kept wishing I had my camera to take photos - a long caravan of police vans were inching their way through a sea of people, many of whom carried banners and waved signs calling for a change in economic policy from President Sarkozy. Unfortunately, by the time I had recharged my battery and went back outside, the mass of angry protesters had dispersed. But I did get to snap this photo of a banner taped to Louis XIV:Now just imagine a lot of people marching and chanting in this general area. If I was more technologically savvy, I would photo shop them in -- but I guess that would be cheating.

god, i hate mornings

Now I remember why I wrote so infrequently last semester - CLASSES! Time just disappears sitting in CMs (cours magistraux, the equivalent of lectures) all day long. Luckily, I've taken a much calmer approach to the whole registration process this semester. I'm done worrying about credits or fulfilling requirements from back home, because there's no way of knowing how it will all calculate out in the end.

Today, I had class starting at 8am until 6pm (with two 2-hour breaks, thank goodness). I haven't been this tired in awhile -- probably because I haven't been to school in awhile. All in all, my courses are actually shaping up to be pretty interesting this semester:

Civilisation and Culture (XIX century): The notion of sublime in literature and painting
Media Cultures: The history and role of the media in France
Cinema
Introduction to Aesthetics/Art History/Regard
The construction of the European community

Tomorrow I'm sitting in on my first Italian class. I hope I haven't completely forgotten everything!

fydor's day at the opera

Finally started work on my Pass Culture (7 shows for 33 euros) with a matinee of Serge Prokofiev's operatic adaptation of "The Gambler" by Dostoyevsky.

The production itself was much more coherent than the one I went to earlier this month at the Théâtre de la Croix Rousse. Unfortunately, it was really hard to follow the story since they didn't give out any kind of free program - and I can't think of any theater experience where it's more important to understand what is going on than an intellectual Russian opera!

All of the performers were very impressive, though. The orchestra played beautifully, and I was especially touched by the performance of the lead soprano. I'm hoping to catch another opera performance before leaving Lyon, and hopefully one in French this time around!

my new boyfriend

Voici mon nouveau copain, Guillaume.

Ha, I wish. I got a message last night from a friend about the première of M. Canet's new film "Espion(s)" at the Pathé Bellecour, at which said actor would be present. Super excited, I bought tickets right after getting out of class this morning and arrived at the theater an hour early. A benefit to living in France is that people are definitely not as celebrity crazy, and people were relatively calm during the screening.

The film wasn't great (I would even go so far as to say it wasn't good) but Guillaume was super sympa, as they say...answering every question fully and with an evident passion for his work.

He also spent quite a bit of time joking around, and was certainly the most entertaining of the panelists (which also included his leading lady and director). For example:

Q: Why did you decide to do this project among the many you are being offered?
A: Well, I had a great first meeting with the director. We got a along really well, smoked some weed...(he was kidding, obviously)

Q: What is it like kissing (your leading lady)?
A: I had no problem with it. And I invite you to come down here and try it.

Sigh. How dreamy.

back to school with barack

Last night, the whole Pellet clan and myself gathered around the television at 6pm to watch the Obama inauguration. Looking into the sea of people, I imagined my friends from home somewhere among the crowd, cheering and soaking up the joy that was that incredible day. Franchement, I feel like I could have picked a better year to go abroad. This is probably the most momentous, historic occasion that I will ever live through, and I could have been in the middle of it all. These are the only times that I have regretted leaving Georgetown for a year.

But today, going back to school, it felt so nice to see my friends, to not be stressed or confused, and to be excited about classes starting up again. And I felt so proud to be American, more than I ever have in my life. Clearly, I'm not the most patriotic of people (I did decide to spend my first presidential election year abroad, after all), but this gave me a burst of joy inside that I never thought politics could produce.

the land of fondue and watches

Just got back from a day trip to Genève. My purchases today reflected (almost to an embarrassing extent) some widely-held Swiss stereotypes:

A) A Swatch watch, which I adore and hope will inspire me to actually wear watches.
B) Fondue, a 16 euro lunch which was worth every centime.
C) Chocolate. Need I say more?

The city is very charming, with a teensy old town and a chic commercial district along the bank of its famous lake. It also has a very international feel, not only as a result of the United Nations base, but also because of its diverse, multi-lingual population. I also noticed lots of people getting onto local commuter buses with ski/snowboard gear, which gave me the itch to go to the mountains and give my new ski pants a whirl.

can't sleep

Aside from the above (which isn't really news), the week has been a mix of extreme laziness and extreme busyness. Yesterday, I took a day trip to Burgundy (which I didn't realize was the English version of Bourgogne until about an hour before we left) where I ate mustard, spice bread, and admired very beautiful (and expensive) bottles of wine. Dijon was the main stop, a small but charming town that takes the owl (chouette in French) as it's mascot. One of my friends met a very friendly woman on the train who invited us to her place for lunch. See, French people are almost ridiculously nice!

Anyway, I woke up in alarm yesterday after realizing that I never told my host family I'd be out of town for dinner last night. Blogging is a way for me to put off going down to apologize, even though I know they won't be hard on me or anything. I just don't like doing things wrong, but I'm just going to have to take a deep breath, suck it up, and do it.

berlin, here i come!

Yesterday, my friend Agnès came over to the apartment to plan our trip to Berlin next month. We're skipping 3 days of classes to attend the Berlinale, one of the top 3 film festivals in the world. This is seriously a dream come true - and I'm so excited!

I hate to admit it, but I felt pretty popular yesterday. I saw 3 different friends, one who left this morning to return to the States, Agnès, and a Canadian friend who I went to the theater with. We went to the Théâtre de la Croix Rousse to see "Le Nouveau Testament", a play by Sacha Guitry that deals with adultery among the Parisian bourgeoisie in the 1930s. It was an interesting play, but the production could have been better. The stage was set up like an impossibly humongous living room with at least 20 couches, some of which were used as seats for the audience. There were also strange video screens used intermittently throughout the play as stand-ins for movie theater screens and windows into the thoughts of one of the main characters. But I wasn't too impressed by the overall production, to be frank.

Friday night was the big dinner with the Georgetown group. As predicted, none of them are people I see myself hanging out with on a regular basis. They are nice enough people, but they have gone out to bars for the last 3 nights in a row (I went out with them on Friday, but declined yesterday night because I was really tired coming back from the theater). 5 of them will be at Lyon 3, but who knows how things will develop over time.

I'm on my way to meet two of my Japanese friends to plan a little trip to Dijon for this week. With no exams or classes, I'm going to try and make a few other day trips too - possibly to Grenoble and Geneva.

an all-around successful day (except for the exam part)

I'm always kind of shocked at how much I get accomplished when I wake up early. Or, rather, when I'm forced to. I had my Art History exam bright and early at 8am today, which meant a 6:45 wake up call. Ugh. The exam probably could have gone better, but in any case, I don't think I failed, which is all that really matters for me to get credit on study abroad.

I then rushed to my visite medicale which is required to get a carte de séjour (a residence visa for people staying in France for more than 3 months). I already knew what to expect because most of my friends had theirs before winter break, and I got sent home after half an hour with a chest x-ray as a party favor.

After meeting up with a friend for lunch, we hit the shops on Rue de la République for the second official day of the soldes. I didn't find anything fabulous, but according to my host sister, the prices will continue to come down over the next few weeks (it's so great to have the inside scoop). One of the most popular brands here these days that isn't Converse or Abercrombie and Fitch is Zadig et Voltaire. I must admit, they have pretty hip and interesting clothes, especially for a French brand. Most others that I've gotten to know over the last few months (Etam, Kookai, Promod) are pretty dull.

The host parents weren't home tonight, so I had frozen pizza with the kids. I even got a lanyard from my youngest host sister, Apolline!

I love my new coat!

I can hardly contain my excitement about the new coat I just bought. I wanted to add a picture, but I don't know how to grab it from the Lacoste website :(

More importantly, today is the beginning of the twice-a-year soldes season in France. Sales, which are regulated by the government, are definitely something to look forward to in this cold cold wintertime. Starting today, they'll last for the next four weeks, with clothes at even the most exclusive brands going on sale for up to 70 percent. I realize this sounds like a really girly thing to be posting about, but it actually is a pretty important period in the French cultural calendar, especially when you think about how serious the French are about fashion.

I've had my eye on this coat since trying it on at the Duty Free at Charles de Gaulle before our flight to Spain. I have an exam tomorrow, so I thought I'd go over to the Lacoste store first thing in the morning to see what the prices looked like. Leaving the apartment, the first store I passed was for baby clothing, and there were more people in there than I've seen all year. It looked almost like Black Friday in the states, but more refined -- people were searching anxiously for sizes, but it was as if they didn't want other people to be able to tell how desperate they were to find them.

Then, walking across Bellecour, almost every woman I passed heading in the opposite direction was carrying at least two or three shopping backs and wearing a contented smile. And this is at 10 in the morning! On a Wednesday! Don't these people have work?

Lacoste was just opening, and within 5 minutes, there were plenty of people buzzing around. It took me only 10 minutes to try on, decide, and swipe my (dad's) credit card. On the way back, glowing with the happiness that comes with a new purchase, I trotted back to the apartment, huge bright blue Lacoste shopping bag in hand. Lost in my thoughts, I only barely heard a woman say "Excusez-moi." I stopped. She asked me where the Lacoste store was, and I was happy to point her the way.

all in the family

I just finished up the first dinner with the host family since the Christmas gift exchange extravaganza and the week away. I haven't really hung out with any of the kids since then, but things went really well tonight. I felt bad for not buying Ferréol something from the Barcelona football club because he asked me about seeing their stadium. I showed Sigolène my new purchases from the vacation (She was nice about it, but seemed a bit skeptical. We don't have the same style anyway).

One of my New Years Resolutions was to hang out more with my host family. I'm not sure I know how to do that though - they're so tight knit, and I would feel weird interrupting them while they all watch TV together at night and stuff. Plus, I do like my alone time. I'm not sure how to go about it - I do want to be pro-active and spend more time with them, but I guess I'm still kind of nervous around them and shy. It always takes a bit of courage for me to venture downstairs into the common living space.

In other news, I've failed miserably at studying for my exam and writing my paper. If I can crank out my second body paragraph tonight and do the third and the conclusion tomorrow, I should be okay (hopefully).

i knew i couldn't be that stupid!!

I am SO relieved.

This morning, I dragged myself out of bed at 7:45am to go to the Prefecture and finally face up to the fact that I lost my temporary Titre de Séjour. And to try to reschedule the required medical exam, the date for which falls exactly on the day of my Art History exam. Stroke of luck that they let me back into the country after coming back from Spain, I thought to myself. Can't leave it up to chance anymore. (Truth is, no one would probably ever notice, seeing as border patrol doesn't really happen in Europe anymore. Something about the European Union...?)

Anyhow, I was given a ticket and waited in one of those bland civil service offices with a bunch of hyper-organized Asian kids. I non-enthusiastically flipped through my Art History review cards while waiting for my number to be called. About 20 minutes later, I approached Guichet H, pretty much your standard post manned by a fonctionnaire with short blond hair and glasses. She seemed like a suburban mom, aka she seemed like she would be friendly. Not so, my friend, not so.

Looking down her pinched nose at me, she got defensive, saying it wasn't her office that dealt with the medical visits. She pointed to the telephone number indicated on the letter, and after telling her I had already tried calling them several times before Christmas, she said I should go to their office. She got frustrated when I asked her where it might be located, saying "You have the address right here (dummy!)"

Taking a deep breath (and on the verge of tears), I told her what I really had come all that way to say. "Is the récipisée that document with my photo stamped on it that you get in the mail?"

"Yes."

"Well...I don't have it."

"You must have received it."

"The thing is...I lost it."

She looked at me in angry disbelief. "Well, you really should get yourself together."

Yup. That was it. No indication of what I should do to fix the situation. And, as tears welled in my eyes, I think it was clear enough that I was torn up about losing the bootleg copy of my temporary residence card. I was teetering between bawling in sorrow/pleading for her forgiveness and being supremely pissed off. There was no excuse for her to talk to me in that way or that tone. Isn't that what she is there for, to help me get my carte de séjour?

Still in a bit of shock, I asked her what I should do. Throwing her hands up in the air, she said in exasperation, "You'll have to go to the commissariat and report the loss of the document to them. Then you have to come back here with a photo so we can get you a new one. And you have to go to the doctor's office to reschedule your appointment. And you have to go today. You should hurry up and fix this."

Great. I stood up and left, in disbelief that anyone could be that mean. I needed to calm down, so I went to the Centre Commerciale and had a hot chocolate and a croissant, while trying to trap a WiFi signal long enough to figure out what the heck a commissariat was. Good news: the office was close to where I live. Bad news: turns out she wanted me to go to the police.

Whether this was all just some cruel joke because she wanted me locked up for stupidity was yet to be seen. I decided to head to the doctor's office first to see what I could do about my medical visit. Possibly the most non-descript building on the most non-descript street in the city, I was greeted by a "Bonjour" right as I walked through the automatic doors. A youngish Arabic woman sat at the acceuil, and asked me if I was there for my medical visit. I explained my problem, and she responded, "The problem is, the office is closed this week, and they wont be able to reschedule you until next week. What I recommend that you do is write a letter and send it by mail with some dates that would be better for you. Then they'll respond to you my mail as well." She smiled. "But I wouldn't worry about it. I think they give you 3 chances to come for the visit, so you should be fine."

She was so nice that I didn't want to bog her down with my stupidity. "A small problem," I said. "The visit is scheduled for this Thursday." I braced myself for the onslaught.

"No problem," she said. "Just send us the letter, and everything will work out."

So it's not that all French civil servants are supreme bitches. It's just that one. So watch out for her.

I decided to make one last sweep of my room to look for the récipissée. It would postpone my visit to the police station, which I was not enthusiastic about. And it would give me a chance to complain to my advisor back at home via email. I carefully went through each of the drawer of my desk. Reaching the final one, which I had looked through at least 15 times, I took out each individual receipt I have kept over the last 4 months and unfolded it. I came across the paper I took to be the code for my bank account -- but lo and behold, it was my récipissé!!

Needless to say, I danced around my room for a few minutes and then did this:
WAHOO!

I couldn't be happier.

and the laziness sets in

After dropping my parents off at the airport shuttle yesterday morning, I have left the Pellet apartment once, to go to the library for 2 hours, and then returned. I can't even say I've been working on the term paper I have due for Tuesday, nor on the ridiculous Art History exam I have on Thursday. Instead, I'm spent nearly 5 hours on Facebook yesterday doing nothing at all productive.

I guess my one excuse is that I'm sad my parents are gone - and that a lot of my friends are, too. Which makes me feel like doing nothing but sit around and wallow in my sadness. I honestly don't even care about the work I have to do. But so it goes...

new year, same sheets

I'm back in Lyon after a jolly 10 day répos with my parents. Paris is absolutely magical at Christmastime, and I can't wait to go back. Barcelona was great too -- especially since I found this amazing vintage party dress there just in time for New Years -- but it was admittedly awkward to be in one of the party capitals of the world completely sober with dear old mom and dad during a night meant for drunken revelry. Now that I'm back in Lyon and without my parents, I don't quite know what to do with myself. A trip to the movies might be just the trick -- after I figure out how to write a six-page paper on Rousseau, of course.

all dressed up, and nowhere to go

happy new year from barcelona! one of my resolutions is to write on this blog more often, whether i feel like i have something to say or not. so i'm starting right now.

being here on this crazy day of drunkenness and chaos in one of the party capitals of the word with my parents is just as awkward as i thought. my mom panicked (and almost walked right into the empty circle where revelers were smashing champagne bottles) and my dad has been watching the fiesta from our hotel room window for the last half an hour.