RE: Zahra, Salma's comments

Ranna takes the point.  

Marie! The baguettes! Hurry up!

I've mentioned before that I love the market across the street from my house.  Every sunday I wake up, get ready and head over to do my weeks worth of grocery shopping.

I have this ridiculous suitcase-looking thing that I swore I would never use.  

Mamman: Ranna, bebin chii kharidam barat!!  (Ranna, look what I bought you!!)

Ranna: I swear I will never use that.  (Ghasam mikhoram keh hich vakht estefadeh nemikonamesh)

Mamman:  Kheyli chiseh khoobiyeh (It's a really good thing)

Ranna: It's weird.  (Weird-eh) 

Alas, my grandmother was right, and now I use it religiously.  It's really great, because it carries all of the groceries, and it has wheels, so I don't have to lug everything home on my shoulders...even though its literally RIGHT across the street from where I live.

I now know which stands I should go to, and which ones I should avoid.  You see, most of the produce vendors are Arab men who are hilarious and really nice.  

I've made friends with one of the older vendors who, each week, gives me another fruit to sample.  Last week it was a clementine, this week it was some grapes.  

Their produce is always amazingly cheap and amazingly tasty (except the lemons which have not been the best for the last two weeks...maybe its a seasonal thing).

EVERYONE flocks to these stands.  I can barely get through to buy what I want sometimes because there are so many people picking out what they need.  

But here's the deal:

there are about 4 or 5 produce vendors at the market who are Frenchy French French French (as in, non-Arab) and there are always like three or four people around their stands buying their fruits.  The first week I was there I thought it was sort of strange that people would push and pull their way into the crowded stands when there was so much space at theirs.  

But for some reason, their produce is about two euros more expensive than any of the other places, and they're selective about who they sell to.

They have their usual customers.  The rest can push and pull.  

Whatever though, I have wayyyy more fun at the crowded stands.  

I also have a favorite cheese stand.  The very nice older couple behind the counter are more than happy to help you choose which type of cheese to buy.  The first week I stuck to what I knew, "bouche de chevre."

I saw chevre and I was like, oh!  I know that that is!

But then I went George Perec on the situation and made a game out of my cheese buying.  Each week when I go, I try to buy another sort of cheese so that by the end of the year, I'll have tried all of them.

So, as of now, I've tried, the Pont Eveque, Bouche de Chevre, and this other one, man I totally forgot what the name of it was but it doesnt matter because it was really weak...

This week, I bought the bouche de chevre again, after taking a break from it last week.  I bought the St. Amartine (first time, havent tried it yet) and a Creme Vache (new too.  I'm excited, it looked aamaaazzziinnggg).

I sound like Monsieur René.  

I never thought I would be excited about tasting cheese.  

So, apart from that, I steer clear from the fish stands because I still havent quite adjusted to the smell, to the way the ice melts and the sidewalk gets wet, and the fact that the fish look like their looking at you...blahssshajfd.   I don't like it.

I also don't go to the meat stands because 1. there's a cool boucherie right by my house. 2. for some reason they have the dead animals, with like fur and feathers displayed on the counters.  

Like,  if anyone is confused about what they're eating,  here it is! 

OK.  I'm gonna go try me some cheeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.  

Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man wealthy, healthy and wise

Apparently there's daylight savings time here.

All my life, I thought it was only something that was done in the US.  

Plus, my phone and television set didn't automatically reconfigure their times so I was hella confused for like 3 hours this morning.  I had to do some extensive research to figure out if there was actually a change in times or something was messed up with my computer.  

Ok, cool.  I get an "extra" hour to sleep.

Only, when I was younger, my mom used to always use that ploy on us.  She'd be like, "Great, tomorrow we pull the clocks back girls, you can sleep one more hour in the morning!" 

but then technically since we slept one hour later, it didnt really matter and I was still tired in the morning and it was still hard to go to school.  

but i think that was mostly because i didn't like high school to begin with.  

or junior high for that matter.

or actually, any year after like 3rd grade when we moved from Montessori to, "real school." 

Et, ALORS!

I think I mentioned before how comfortable my bed is.  But really, this bed is amazing.  I've never in my entire life slept as soundly and deeply as I do here.  Plus, I have these amazing blinds that go down automatically with a push of a button; they drown out all the light.  On the weekends, I have the hardest time waking up.  Sometimes, I put an alarm on just to wake up before 2:00 in the afternoon. 

This morning, while slumbering peacefully, my phone started to vibrate.  At 7 in the morning, I don't usually receive phone calls.  It was from the FranceTelecom operator telling me that someone would be at my apartment in 30 minutes to set up my telephone and television.  I was contemplating whether I should tell him not to come until my scheduled appointment (noon); but, over here, if opportunity to get something finished quicker than anticipated comes your way, you take it.  Otherwise, it may be lost forever.  

So, I jumped out of bed, got ready, made my bed, cleaned a little here and there and waited. 

The man who came, Christian, was VERY French.  The first thing he checked was to make sure the computer was working; my internet page was actually already opened to Facebook.  He started to laugh and asked me what it was, this Facebook.  I told him, in my broken French, that it was a place where friends could share pictures, notes, and keep in touch.  He told me he had a cousin living somewhere in the US.  The West, he thought.

That's nice.  

Maybe Arizona, maybe California.  "Ollleywoood, tu connais?" 

Oh, yeah, Hollywood.  Mhm, yeah, I've heard of it.  

So, he asked me to try to find his cousin on Facebook.  

What's her name?

Rebecca Nicholson.  

As I was re-logging onto Facebook, he started to tell me how amazing and cool it would be if he found her.  

She must have two children by now.  Maybe three.  I wonder what they look like.  I visited Arizona once before, did you know?  Yes, Flagstaff.  You know it?  

Yeah, I know it.  

137 results found for Rebecca Nicholson.  

Yeah, I'm really sorry, but there are a lot of Rebecca Nicholson's out there.  

Ah, merde, is there any other way I could find her?  Could you show me how?  

Welllll, considering the fact that I paid 49 Euro for you to come and fix my television, and its 7:30 in the morning, maybe not today.  

Only I didn't actually say that.  I looked at him, smiled, and told him, well maybe if you knew exactly where she lived.........I think he got my point.  

So then he started to fix my television.  Apparently the password they had given me was incorrect, so he had to call the store to get the real one.  The conversation with his employee went a little something like this:

Alo baba, oui it's Christian.  How are all the female colleagues doing? 

To me: He's moroccan, you know.  We all call him baba.  It's a joke.  The girls are a joke too, you know.  We have a lot of females working with us.  It's nice, you know.

I'm sure. 

To baba:  Ok, thanks for the password.  Hey, what are you doing tonight?  You're not busy?  Ok, well then do you want to go out?  Well, you know, I work every day during the week, saturday nights are the only night I have off.  Lets go out.  Great, sounds good.  Tell all of your female colleagues.  

So we fixed the television.  First he showed me how many channels there were.  I have a lot.  I have all the French channels, some Polish ones, BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera.  

I made a comment about how I thought it was cool that I had Al-Jazeera.

He frowned: There are a lot of Arabs here, you know.  It's a problem.  It's a really big problem.  They come into our country, have a lot of children, and take all of our money.  I don't think they should be allowed in.  Hey, just between the two of us, I'm really not happy with the situation. 

Uhhh, yeah, yeah. 

No, just between the two of us, I think they should try to handle how many people come into our country, because right now its just not right.  What about in the US? 

Well, it's different there.  PLEASE JUST LEAVE CRAZY MAN 

Yeah, it's different?  The elections?  Who's going to win?

I don't know, it's pretty close.

Yeah, I can't believe they've chosen a black man though.  Just between the two of us, I think it's going to be just like Kennedy.  

And then he started to pretend he was shooting a gun. 

I kind of looked at him for a second thinking he was kidding, but it was just like something out of a movie.  He kept saying, "Just like Kennedy, just like Kennedy," and then pointing and making shooting noises.  

I was dealing with a crazy person I needed to get out of my apartment immediately.

So then I changed the subject to the television again, thanked him for fixing it for me, and he was like, alright, well good, everything works, have a good day.  But then the TV program caught his eye and he sat back down and started to watch TV.

Huh?  I was just so confused.  I thought he was going to leave!  He shook my hand! WHY WAS HE SITTING DOWN!? 

It was a tennis match between Serena Williams and someone else.  After a couple minutes of him watching TV and me watching him watching TV, he got up and scowled as he said, "Women are not supposed to look like that.  Why is she so BIG?  She's like a monster."  

And then he shook my hand and left.  

I sat on my bed for a little, and then decided to go back to sleep in my comfortable bed and pretend that it was all a dream.  

Julien says BON JOUR

Well, my, my.  It has been a long time.  I have not been ignoring my duties of bringing stories of my life for those living vicariously through my experiences (Naaaazzzyyyyy.  It's OK Ninka, I love you).  Due to a strong form of clumsiness that only few possess, I was able to spill the entire contents of last friday night's salad on to my keyboard, and thus for a week now (GASP!  One week, I know!), I have been without means of getting through to the rest of the world.

POSITIVE OUTCOMES OF SAID EXPERIENCE 

1. I learned a new word--Le clavier--the keyboard.

2. The time I would usually spend checking email-facebook-email-facebook-email-facebook-email, I spent decorating my apartment, studying all six tenses of the indicative mode for 809 different verbs, and, yes, you guess it , cleaning my floors. 

**Just as a side note: I pretty much gave up on the floor thing and bought some ridiculous blue, glittery slippers.  I call them "dampaee zeshthah" They can collect the grime instead.  

3. Because I didn't write several blog entries, I now have reason to write a really long one.  woo! 

So, what's happened since my last entry?  What hasn't happened?!?!  

Just kidding. 

My classes...actually...two of my classes started this week.  

One of them is my most intensive course, two and a half hours of straight grammar, vocabulary, complete concentration.  

--ok.  im sorry, so i'm writing this blog in my apartment, right?  and i just want to let everyone know that Mims is learning the words to the song that's like, "One, you're like a dream come true.  Two, just want to be with you...." for a classor something, and she plays it over and over and over and over, and the part where all of a sudden he hits the alto she decides that she would like to sing, so she starts.  8 times, people.  8. times.  I need to make that girl a mixed tape of music I actually enjoy. 

So anyway, the time I spend in class each day, I learn the equivalent of the amount of French I would learn in a year in the US.  I can go on and on about the problems I have with the foreign language system at home, but I'll spare you...it all comes down to the fact that my class is amazing.  

The other students in class are super cool too.  They come from all over the world, and we all speak French with each other.  It's cool how fast we became friends, really.  I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we're all in a new place by ourselves.  Bichareh, this one girl from Japan was like, ''Yeah, i spent my birthday by myself.  all alone.  in paris"  she totes deserves a cake one of these days.  

Besides the language class I'm taking this retarded phonetics course.  

REASONS WHY IT'S RETARDED:

1.  It's at 8:00 in the morning.  When I leave the apartment, it's still dark outside.  

2.  Since it's a phonetics class, it's organized by nationality and so I'm in a class filled with American people who have decided that they would much rather speak English than try their hands (or mouths) at French.  So this morning, I tried to speak French to the girl sitting next to me and she started laughing and loudly said, "WELL, LOOK AT YOU!!" 

I'm never sitting next to her again.

3. The class itself is really strange.  The teacher stands in front of the class and says little phrases, which we must repeat.  It goes something like this:

Prof: "Il est fatigué"

Students: "Il est fatigué"

Prof: "Non, il est fatigué" 

Students: "Il est fatigué"

Prof: "I L'EST FA TI GUÉ"

Ok lady, you know what, je suis fatiguée.  Make me wake up at 6:30 in the morning for THIS!?

The only cool thing about our class is that the second portion is lab and we get to wear cool headphones with built in microphones.

ok. so it's not THAT cool, but at least I'm searching for the positive.  

No, you know what?  They ARE really cool.  I wear them and I'm all like, "Yeah, I'm a pilot, what now?" 

But, its all part of the learning process, so despite being...not my favorite...phonetics is a very important part of learning any language.  Think Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady."  If I want to be a flower girl, I MUST be able to perfectly articulate the rain in spain sits mainly on the plain...in French.  It's just the way it goes.  

ANYWAY, apart from that, I'm also taking History of French Art and The Origins and Results of the French Revolution, which start next week.  So excited.  I think for the art history class we get guided tours around the Louvre!!!!!! 

And now, a list of my favorite things to do.  Amelie Poulin style (if you havent seen the movie, Amelie, I suggest you go to blocks right now.  RIGHT NOW.  and rent it.  Fave movie ever). 

RANNA'S FAVORITE THINGS

1. Walk through Saint Germain-des-Pres and take expired art gallery posters from the walls/windows and decorate my apartment with them.  Whenever I have little to do, I hop on the metro and go find new posters. 

2. The farmer's market across the street.  Every sunday.  It has everything I could every want to satisfy all of my taste buds.  I basically plan my entire week around the market.  I basically have nothing to eat at home on Fridays and Saturdays.  So I go over to Marion's and she doesn't have anything to eat either.  So thats when I make a salad consisting of one tomato with olive oil dressing that spills on my computer.  I go to sleep those nights with an empty stomach and a broken...what is it, folks?  CLA VI ER.  

So yeah, the market is really amazing.  All of the vendors are Arab men who sing and yell and kind of frightened me the first week I went. 

Actually, haha, the very first week I went to the market, I walked through the entire thing without buying anything.  When I got to the end I was like, "RANNA, pull yourself together.  You can do this.  You need to eat!  Think with your stomach."  So then I walked through again and bought like 2 tomatoes, 1 lemon, some cooked potatoes, and 4 oranges.  I think I ate at Marion's that night.

3.  I like to walk from L'Acadamie Française to the Louvre using the Pont des Arts.  My dad introduced it to me and I love it.  I think its because it's sandwiched between two amazingly wonderful buildings filled with amazingly wonderful histories.  I always take my time and stop in the middle to check out what's going on around me.  One time, I threw a piece of bread on a bateau mouche just because I wanted to do it.  Thats right,  you know me, rebel without a cause.  Piece of bread, bad a$$.  

4. I like to count how many people look like they're not paying attention when really they think it's the funniest thing when homeless men and women get on the metro and make speeches about needing money and start singing.  It happens so often that people lose interest after a while, but there are some people who look like they put a lot of effort into ACTING like they've lost interest.  Right when a man/woman walks in and starts performing, they start to read their newspapers more intently, or they start playing with their phone.  My favorite is when they act like they're asleep.  They'll be dead awake and then when the bichareh homeless person comes in starts belting "La Vie En Rose," and they close their eyes and start breathing deeply.

5. My bed is very comfortable. 

OK.  My fingers are tired and also, the Picasso exhibit just opened up at the Louvre so I think I'm going to head to that.

Cheers. 

actually, PS I've gotten some emails from people asking for pictures of some certain and specific things, so here they are.  

  Marion, and the devil dog, "Angel"  the bedroom, office, dining room, living room, tv room

 another view of the bedroom.  the hallway leads to the kitchen and bathroom, WC, closet, and front door.  

Saidi, Abol Qassem

Let them eat cake.

Today dad and I went to Versailles.  

I am disappointed.  

I guess I'll go on....

Sitting at dinner tonight I felt like I was unjustified in my disappointment.  I mean, what did I expect?  But see, that's it.  I had fantasized about it so much, and expected the best.  

I expected grandeur, charm, women walking around in over-the-top 18th century garb eating macaroons and drinking champagne.  

What I encountered today was bleak and uninviting. 

As I tried to explain myself to my dad, nothing seemed to describe the chateau quite like I wanted.  I finally resulted in describing it as though, "rangesh parideh bood," or literally, "it's color had jumped out."

Baba looked like he finally understood what I was trying to say.

I've been impressed with French royalty since my first year of French class, seventh grade.  I continued to be fascinated with it through the years I spent reading about Josephine and Napoleon, and last year when I watched "Marie Antoinette" for the first time.  My obsession with learning about the monarchy and dreaming about the monarchy was out of hand.  I knew I had reached unhealthy extremes when I started to question the French Revolution.  "I mean, did they REALLY have to storm the Bastille?"  

But it was more that my imagination had taken the reigns:  I kept thinking about the past and how beautiful it was, and how perfect it was, and how ethereal it was.

Of course I would be disappointed with the reality. 

The reality being that it was 200+ years ago, and now it's just another spectacle for the tourist's eye.  

So anyway, that's that.   

"Restaurant is my temple"

My pedar is visiting for a couple of days and he's really big on eating (great, the gene comes from both sides.  really great, parents).  I feel like for the most part, a huge chunk of our time has been spent in various restaurants.  I mean, as long as he's paying, I'll eat...

We've had a few really interesting experiences with food in the last two days.  Here are some I'd like to share: 

1. Yesterday when he arrived, we went and dropped his stuff off at Amoo Joon Abol's place (I'll dedicate a blog entry on AJA later in the week once I've spent more time with him), which is right off of Rue de Beaux-Arts in the swanky Saint German-de-Pres.  We decided to catch a quick lunch in the neighborhood before we went off to explore.  The place we chose was your normal, everyday brasserie.  We didn't think it was anything too special.  It had the conventional Parisian menu with salads, sandwiches, poulet frites...you know.  Right when we sat down, the waiter came and asked for our drink orders; my dad ordered a beer.  

What size, the waiter asked.

Big.  

Big is very big, monsieur.  

Big.  

Um, I don't think I've ever seen a beer that size.  21.20 euro.  That's like $30.00.

My dad justified the cost by saying, "it's OK.  Restaurant is my temple." 

I was like, um, this restaurant specifically, or....

No, restaurants are his temples apparently.  You know, I'm not too sure what it means yet, but I'm just going to go for it...

2. I thought we weren't going to eat dinner.  I'm not going to lie, I was pretty surprised when my dad woke up at 9:30 and asked if I was ready to go find a restaurant.   I really wasn't that hungry, but my dad was enthralled by the fact that I live in Chinatown and wanted to go check it out.  We walked around a bit and we decided to venture into a Vietnamese/Chinese/Korean restaurant that seemed pretty packed.  We chose the right place.  1. the food was amazing.  2. everyone eating there knew the owner by first name (Robert) and he knew who they were. 3. At the end of the night, for the first time since I've been here, someone spoke to me in French and I understood EVERYTHING they were saying AND I responded perfectly.  Afterwards I was like, ooh snap, look at me!  It was great.  

3. Tonight we were around the Champs Elysees area and we were just walking around looking for a place to eat dinner when we ran across a little cafe (for the life of me I can't remember it's name), a steakhouse, with a loooooooooooooooooooooooooongggggggggggg line outside of it.  Dad and I stopped, laughed, then kept walking.  We were like, "psshhh, who waits this long for a freaking steakhouse??"

Yeah, apparently we do.  

50 minutes later and we finally had a little table in the corner (ironically, we were seated right next to these three Iranian women.  It was cute because they incorporated French into their Farsi dialogues, just like we do.  They would be like, "badesh residam oonjah, et la fille a dit..." 

It was like Finglisi all over again.  Not gonna lie, I spent at least 1o minutes sitting there thinking about what the word would be if French and Farsi were joined together.  Although, the French say Persan, so technically if French and Persan were meshed...Farancavi, Persan.  Persancavi?)  

Even though we had no idea what we were in store for, the wait was totally worth it.  It was a steak frites place.  It only served steak frite.  Ready? 

You sit down.  The waitress comes over and asks how you want your meat done.

Medium, you say.

What do you want to drink?

House wine.  Which I didnt like at first, I thought it was too dry, but it went really well with the main course.  

First course, salad and bread.  The salad had a really great dressing, olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, salt, pepper.  Light, but delicious.  And walnuts, it had crushed walnuts on top.  

Then the main course, the steak is perfectly tender with this sauce.  This sauce.  I never even figured out what kind of a sauce it was.  Apparently the restaurant is famous for it.  It was like "sabzi" drowned in butter and just sooo great.  And the frites!  Joy to the frites!  I could spend the entire day eating the frites and the sauce.  

So after you finish your first dish, out come the steak and the frites again for a second serving.  

Then, you have to get dessert, because the place is also famous for dessert. 

They have everything, from fruit dishes to café glacé, to creme brulée.  

And to top off the amazingness of dinner, dad paid.  

restaurant is my temple, baba joon.  

the negative blog entry

things i dont like about this place:

1. my floors never seemed to get clean.  no matter what i do.  i've vacuumed, swept, mopped (several times) but for some reason they wont get clean.  i made a sign at the entryway to my apartment asking people to PLEASE take off their shoes (in several languages so that it's very clear).  But what's the point if the floors are already dirty. 

2. i cant find Swiffer towelettes to clean my floors.  

3. My other neighbor, her name is Mims (yeah, I dont know) is kind of obnoxious.  She has this little floofy dog that she keeps LOCKED in her room all day long.  Only today, she decided to keep the dog outside and the poor thing is crying and barking, only I dont want to invite her in because she'll just make my floors dirtier.  

4. Mims also likes to listen to loud and strange music (think: "Everytime We Touch" and then imagine other songs like that...).  I wonder if she cleans her floors.  

 

Puisque la beauté est aussi dans les yeux de celui qui regarde

Standing on the top floor of the Centre Pompidou was the most amazing experience of my life.  I wasn't prepared to see the view that I saw.  It caught me completely off guard with it's magnificence.  

Even before I head to the top I could feel the creative juices bubbling inside me.  I was thinking about how much I appreciate art, how much of an emotional release it is for me to draw, to create my own artwork.  The question of whether Economics is really the field for me comes up in daily life.  

So, you can imagine what I was thinking when I entered Pompidou.  Apart from having a HUGE library and a noteworthy restaurant (although c'est très cher!) it's also the national museum of modern art in Paris.  The building itself is a modern masterpiece, in my mind.  It is literally an inside-out brightly colored building. 

So, ok.  I deviated from my original point.  

To enter the first gallery (the temporary exhibit--right now it's Jacques Villeglé--wikipedia him or something, he's really cool), you must go up three or four flights of stairs.  Fortunately, they have escalators.  As i started to go up, I was fascinated by the sight of the apartments in front of me.  They had the look of typical Parisian apartments, windowpanes with flowerpots, brick roofs.  They contrasted perfectly with the Pompidou building.  The old meets the young.  Classical meets futuristic.  

As I went up, I decided to skip the first gallery to check out what the view was from the top.  From the moment I caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, I was captivated. 

Imagine this:

To your left: a full image of the Tour D'Eiffel

To your right: Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur 

Next window: Notre Dame and Pantheon.  

In the middle: Perfect, wonderful Parisian skyline 

There are some moments in your life that you'll remember forever.  Standing atop the Centre Pompidou, I thought no matter what else happens this year, the view I saw today and the feeling I felt will characterize my idea of Paris.  When I close my eyes I can still imagine the sight.  It was just... breathtaking.  

Just a cute anecdote: A little girl standing next to her grandmother was fascinated with the famous Stravinsky Fountain.  She pointed at it from where we were standing and yelled, "Regardez la mer!!"  I love French children.