American in Paris

Whew. The last couple of days have been a whirlind.
After my long afternoon at Musée d'Orsay, I used Wednesday to catch up on some errands and some reading. Most of the day I ended up frantically trying to get a hold of AT&T so that I could get my iPhone working. I am so frustrated that I didn't get international service set up before I left. Perhaps it is a sad indicator of my reliance on technology, but without an internet connection I was feeling totally ennervated and miserable. It made it hard to want to go out and do anything in Paris, but sitting around my apartment was even worse. When I finally got it working and could get email, maps, online guidebooks, translator and weather (an achievement after no less than six payphones wouldn't put me through to customer service and I had a complete meltdown at an Orange store when the salesman explained to me that I couldn't get a European simcard because my phone was locked by AT&T), it felt like flipping a switch and suddenly seeing Paris in a completely new way. It's sad, of course, that having internet is so important, but I suppose it's not that surprising coming first from Blitz, then Blackberry, then the iPhone. I haven't been away from an internet connection for more than two hours in... about six years. No wonder it was painful.
The same day I made my first trip to a grocery store, and stocked my fridge with delicious fresh fruits, yogurt, eggs and some entrées prepareés from Carrefour. I considered whether I was doing myself a disservice by planning to rely on cooking meals at home most of the time, seeing as how haute cuisine is such an important part of experiencing French culture. But then I considered that, like anyone else, normal French people don't actually go out to eat more than probably once a week, and eating Carrefour prepared meals (which are amazing, by the way) is as much if not more a part of French culture than eating overpriced, heavy, and very tourist-oriented coq au vin on the Champs Elysees. I'm also saving myself a ton of money, and eating much healthier than if I was relying on restaurants all the time.
On Thursday I planned for another day out, and, after sleeping in and making myself breakfast, hopped over to the Ile de la Cité to take advantage of the free guided English tours of Notre Dame offered at noon on Thursdays. The tour lasted about two hours and was given by a church volunteer who has been giving these cathedral tours for fifteen years. It was incredible; she knew every detail of the church, from each type of metal ore used to color each pane of stained glass to the names of every Paris bishop buried in the crypt below. After the tour I took a chilly stroll around the island, bought a thoroughly overpriced chocolat chaud at a nearby crepes stand, and headed back to my little neighborhood on the Left Bank. Having decided that at some point soon I would need to do a little bit of clothes shopping, I spent a few hours lèche-vitrines (window-licking -- not my favorite term in the world) in preparation. In France, stores are only legally allowed to have sales during two points during the year, for three weeks starting at the end of January, and likewise at the end of July. Therefore, right now, absolutely every boutique in the city is having fabulous sales, which end on February 10th. It seemed a good time to take advantage of that other bedrock of French culture, shopping.
And on Friday I did just that. Equipped with a good night of sleep and a good idea of what was on sale where, I embarked for the 9th arrondisement, the center of fashion in Paris. The last few days I had been carefully trying to observe the more obvious trends of Parisians, mostly to find that the French adhere to stereotypes better than almost any other group. Condescending, haughty and unfriendly, I counted one in four Parisian women wearing black berets and twice that number in ballet flats. à Rome, fait ce que font les Romains: my first stop was to buy a nice black beret. It turned out this was harder to find than I thought, until I walked past a little side-street creperie that also happened to be selling wool hats. The little shopkeeper helped me to put it on just so, gave me a little scowl for being American, and sent me on my way to les Grands Magasins. Amazingly, I felt about two hundred times more confident now that I was wearing a silly French beret. Not that I felt like I fit in, I still think I stick out as not-at-all French, but at least I stopped getting as many condescending looks from Parisian women.
For days I had been nervous about shopping in French boutiques, partly because I always hate shopping in small stores where the saleswoman watches you like a hawk for any sign of purchasing interest, and partly because of this insufferable attitude of French women everywhere, particulaly when you're gazing through shop windows and receiving glares from the owner inside. My fear was of being made to feel unwelcome, especially if I didn't buy anything, or of being unknowingly talked into buying something I didn't want but that was lost in translation. (Hoping to avert French eye-rolling, I have been trying to speak French touts les temps, but most of the time I still get overt eye-rolls and end up stuttering over myself trying to find the right words.) All in all, I predicted the shopping experience to be truly uncomfortable.

But it wasn't. I started in a few of the larger boutiques (think the French equivalent of J. Crew or Banana Republic), and then moved on to the department stores, Au Printemps and Les Galeries Lafayettes. The saleswomen were extraordinarily friendly, and it turned out I knew all the French phrases I needed to:
"Un plus petits, s'il vous plait." (One size down, please).
"Qu'est-ce que vous pensez?" (What do you think?)
"Non, merci, il est trop cher." (No, thank you, it's too expensive.)
"Oui! Je le prends!" (Yes, I'll take it!)
(As an aside, when I'm mentally trying to conugate -re verbs, I always hear Katie McVey in my head, instructing: "S... S... nothing!" with the accompanying large arm movements. It makes me smile.)
I made it through the day without being talked into too much, and walked out with two cute little dresses. My new favorite: a little black, strapless, tiered tafetta cocktail dress, on sale for 30 euros. Sadly, the matching shoes will have to wait.
Triumphant from my successful deal-hunting, I decided to reward myself with a somewhat extravagant lunch from le Café Printemps. I got dirty looks from the waiter and the busboy for badly mispronouncing "ballotine de poulet", but it was totally worth it, the best French meal I've had so far. I stayed for a while just people watching at the restaurant, as Parisian ladies-who-lunch dined together with expensive boutique shopping bags resting next to the table, gaudy jewelry on their fingers and around their necks, trying to one-up each other with overly big hair. Most drank hot wine or iced champagne, and picked daintily at their salads throughout the meal, condescending to look at the waiter only when they needed a refill.
I returned to my apartment just long enough to drop off my bags, then changed directions and sought to find the Oliver Wyman office in Paris since, for dumb and confusing reasons, my W-2 was waiting there. I picked it up in a lovely, glass-enclosed office overlooking the Boulevard Victor Hugo, meeting a few of the consultants who were just wrapping up their work week and beginning to congregate around glasses of wine.
I thought it would be nice to walk down the Champs Elysees towards the Louvre, but about halfway into this endeavor I realized how sore I was from a day of being on my feet in cute but impractical shoes. The futon-mattress-on-the-floor setup is starting to get to me too, and making me incredibly glad that I'm making this trip now, at 22, rather than at 42 or 52 when I'm sure my back couldn't take it. I took the Metro the rest of the way to the museum, and arrived in perfect time: the Louvre is free after 6pm on Fridays between October and April for anyone under 26 (also when the moon is a waxing gibbus and the temperature is between 4 and 7 celsius, so I was in luck!) Though the museum stays open until ten, it was only about 2 hours before I was too tired from my long day, and couldn't make it any further. Two hours was just long enough to make it through the Denon wing, with the Greek and Roman statuary and French, Spanish and Italian Renaissance paintings. Much better than d'Orsay, I felt significantly more comfortable, and determined further that my artistic interests are French and Italian paintings from the 15th, 16th and some of the 17th century. Also, I discovered a new favorite artist, Guido Reni, who I previously didn't know but whose Louvre paintings all took my breath away. So much for the Mona Lisa - I far prefer being surprised at a museum by a painting or artist I've never seen and getting goosebumps for the first time. I also discovered that I prefer paintings that depict scenes like the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, or John the Baptist. In other words, I guess, I have extremely Catholic tastes.
I also love when I'm reminded of someone by something I wouldn't have guessed would be associated. Like Katie McVey and -re verbs, or, interestingly, St. Thomas always reminds me of my mom. After my long day yesterday and the sensory overload of the Louvre and Les Grands Magasins, I decided to write a poem about it:

Haiku de Catherine
***
Sometimes in Paris
when I miss my big sister
I go to the Gap
****