On the road: a quick hello

I can't write a lot at the moment, because I'm monopolizing Eleni's computer, but I just wanted to write a quick post to let you all that I am alive and well and have not even missed any of my planes or trains while traveling. I'm pretty proud of that. Although poor Hannah had to wait for an hour and a half for me at the Edinburgh train station because my train was late and then my phone wouldn't work so I couldn't call her to find her. But it all worked out in the end and I had a wonderful time in Edinburgh.
It was a huge change to be somewhere where everyone not only speaks English but it is also the official language. Although the Scottish accent was hard to understand at times. I really did love Scotland. It was so green and beautiful. And because I flew into Glasgow Prestwick I ended up taking a train across a good part of the country. I was just totally not prepared to see so much nature, after being in a paved city for so long. The second day that I was in Edinburgh we walked around in the hills above the city and it felt so amazing to have grass beneath my feet. I can't wait to upload all the pictures.
I got to spend Hannah's birthday with her, which was really great. It felt wonderful to be with old friends again (Doug hung out too) and really surreal. Hard to say goodbye too, but I was leaving to go see Laura in Berlin, so I couldn't be too sad. Berlin was also really great, but in a completely different way than Edinburgh. Because it was so destroyed in the war, it's so new, such a mix of different things going on. I flew into an airport in the east of the city, so we got to take the train across the whole of Berlin. It was really interesting to see the abandoned parts of the east, the immense amounts of graffiti everywhere, and all the buildings with the exact same design that were built after the war. It seemed like such a great mix of cultures (tons of Turkish, Chinese, Italian, German food stands everywhere). And to make matters even better, Laura lives in an amazing apartment (don't worry there are pics of it).
After seeing the sights in Berlin, I headed off to Maastricht last night. Again, so different from other places I've been in Europe. Very small and old feeling. I got to explore a little bit today and will do some more tomorrow. Getting to see Eleni has been so unreal, especially since she's with a bunch of Macalester students. So weird to be with these familiar people in an unfamiliar place. I actually am about to go eat with them, so I have to go. But I will write more when I get back to Paris on Sunday. Plus I'll post the pictures.
Love to you all,
Liza

Some random photos from Paris

Here are some pictures, (in no particular order), from the last few weeks.

Dressed up for Nola's 21 birthday (we went and had fondue, my first in Paris).
L-R: Leona, Nola, Me, Marina

Allegra and Me, at the table that Anna set up for our new tradition of eating weekend breakfast together

L'Arche de Triomphe

People waiting for the what they thought would be a concert by Coco Rosie (but was really just a tea party) to open. The cafe, in case you can't read it, is called Mad Vicky's

The Pantheon, with a sliver of moon in the sky

A cemetery overlooking a suburb in the North of Paris. We were on a tour of a housing re-development project in the area

I can't remember what this is called, but it used to be where wheat was traded in Paris (Keith, Dad, Grampy, I thought you might find it interesting). Who's ever seen such a fancy trade building!

A statue that I like, in front of St. Eustace, the biggest church in Paris

St. Eustace, a really awesome church that is really active in campaigns to prevent AIDS and also does a lot to promote contemporary art, even displaying some inside. They also have free organ concerts on Sundays before mass which are supposed to be spectacular. This church is also the place where people were put on trial for their lives during the "Terroir" or terror, which was the bloodiest part of the French Revolution.

So now you got to see some pictures and even learned a little bit. I'm going to leave it at that to go pack. Scotland here I come!

Long over-due summary of my weekend (how exciting!)

Salut!

So my blog about this weekend will maybe seem tame after the Denmark post, but it was nice to stay in Paris and hang out for a few days without having to worry about school. We only had class until 12:30 on Thursday and no class on Friday, so it was a nice long weekend.

After class on Thursday, I headed over to Caitlin’s apartment. She goes to Brown, and they have a program in Paris, so she rents an apartment with a friend who’s in that program. Along with Adi, we spent the afternoon doing (or at least trying to do) our homework (we had a dissertation due this morning). In the evening, Caitlin and I headed up to Montmartre to what we thought would be a café opening and small concert by Coco Rosie, a group from New York. It was not quite what we expected. It was more like a tiny art show opening, with just 2 small rooms. The café turned out to be just a sink and stove where the 2 women from the group were making tea in a huge pot. At least there was free tea (and it was good tea) to make up for the huge crowd squeezed into the tiny space and for the fact that they didn’t perform at all. While that was a little disappointing, the whole tea-party experience was something crazy that will be a fun memory to have. To warm up after all that waiting around, I went back to Caitlin’s and had dinner with her roommate, a friend from Brown, Leona, (a childhood friend, coincidentally, of Adi) and Adi. It was really nice and relaxing and a great way to start the weekend.

Friday I got to sleep in a little (nice after having to wake up every day at 7:30) and then headed off the train station to buy by discount youth passes that get you discounts on train tickets. Then I met up with Anna, my German friend from the foyer, to go to the Champs-Élysées. I saw L’Ache de Triomphe for the first time (woohoo, it’s funny how I haven’t really done a lot of touristy sightseeing, because I live here and feel like I can always do it when people come to visit) and then we went shopping. We stopped in Louis Vuitton, just for the experience. I can’t believe that people will spend 300 euros on a wallet or over 1000 euros for a charm for a bracelet! I was kinda overwhelmed by it all, and so we decided not to go in anymore ridiculously expensive stores.

Friday night I invited Nola to come over to the foyer and meet and hang out with my friends here. It was great to get to invite someone the foyer and feel like there were people there that I really wanted her to meet. We had a really fun time and it was great French practice because not everyone spoke English so our only common language was French. It’s really a confidence boost to find that you can have long conversations about subjects other than French history or literature. Plus it was the first time I’d had anyone from the program come over to admire my lovely room (Nola couldn’t believe how small the rooms in our foyer are! And that we don’t get our own private bathrooms).

Saturday I went with Adi and Leona to the Puce Saint Ouen (the flea market). We were a little disappointed to find that for really old stuff, the prices were really high. They had some pretty great vintage clothing, but for prices too high to pay for poor college students. But we did find some really great antique key chains that were old advertisements for French car companies and stuff like that. We had a great time looking through them all and picking out ones that we thought our friends might like. I think that I’ll have to go back again when it’s warmer, because it is pretty fun just to walk around and look at all the stuff that people have stock-piled over the years. I’m sure that Paul and Joan would go crazy for all of it. Except that some of the furniture is just too huge to get on a plane back to the U.S.

And then Sunday I had to write a paper, and no one needs to hear about that. So there is what I did for the weekend. Now I need to go pack for my week off from school. In case you haven’t already heard this from my parents, I’m leaving tomorrow for Scotland, where I’ll stay with my friend Hannah in Edinburgh until Monday. Then I fly to Berlin to stay with Laura til Thursday, and then it’s off to Maastricht, Netherlands (Grandpa, that is the birthplace of André Rieu) by plane and train to see Eleni until Sunday. So it will be a real adventure. I’ve never traveled so much in my life. Let’s hope I don’t get lost on my way!

Hope you all are doing well, and I will write again when I get the chance.

Love,

Liza

P.S. Grandma Bonnie, Grandpa Ole, Grandma Elizabeth and Grampy, I loved getting the Valentine’s cards in the mail. Thanks so much! It was so wonderful to hear from you. They are sitting on my desk so that I can see them while I do my homework.

The Pictures that I Promised

Here are the pictures that wouldn't upload the other day. There are quite a few, so sorry that it is so long!

Lunch with Miles. Lots of open-faced sandwiches

Downtown Copenhagen. I think the buildings are incredible!

One of the canals, where people had thrown in whole loaves of bread for the birds. They couldn't even pick them up, because they were too heavy!

A canal near the National Museum

People watching on Saturday afternoon. This is the square that leads out of Stroget (pronounced just "stro") that is the pedestrian shopping street.

The Rosenberg castle gardens.

They had swans!

More gardens

Me in the gardens, looking at the little flowers that were coming up.

Miles and I walking (Kate took these pictures and has shared them with me!)

I loved the circular windows on this building. I thought they looked like bubbles!

You can't really see it, but there is a Danish rapper is performing in the background.

The public skating rink in downtown.

More skating rink

A picture of the incredible amount of bikes parked everywhere

They were everywhere!

So those are my pictures from Copenhagen. Enjoy. Oh, and wishing everyone a Happy Late Valentine's Day. I'll post again soon with pictures from my week back here in Paris...we got to go on a few tours of art and architecture in the city, so I have pictures from that.
Love and miss you all,
Liza

Back from Denmark (which means back to school, unfortunately)

Hello Everyone,

It’s been a while since I’ve written, but I’ve had quite an eventful week, so don’t worry, this will be a long post to make up for that. And right now, the picture portion of this blog isn't working, so I'm going to have to upload them another time. Sorry, but the internet here is less than optimal. For now, you'll just have to read a lot of text, and hope that I can get the pictures working tomorrow.

Last week I had my interview with the organization that I will be working with. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be doing because the organization not only provides links to legal aid (they are not lawyers themselves I guess) but also educates people about their rights and promotes cultural recognition in Berbère. To way oversimplify, Berbère is the term used in France for French citizens with ancestors of North African descent (especially countries formerly colonized by France like Mali, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia). These communities face a lot of problems with integration in France, because even when they are second or third generation French citizens, they are often not recognized as such or are assumed to be immigrants and not French. Again, I’m not an expert, and so the situation is much more complicated than that, and I am going to be learning a ton from my months working with these issues. I wish that I could say that the interview went well, but I left it feeling really nervous that perhaps I wasn’t what the organization wanted. However, Thomas (one of the directors of my program) has assured me that it is normal in France to not be warmly welcomed when being first met by an employer. In the U.S. it’s common for people to be overly nice, almost superficial when they meet you, but in France people are more upfront (more honest I guess) with their feelings, and thus don’t act overjoyed to see you when they don’t know you. After I slept on it and talked with Thomas I felt much better, and even though it is going to be challenging and probably uncomfortable at the outset, I am going to learn a lot and hopefully benefit immensely from working with French co-workers and in Parisian communities.

But the internship won’t start for another 3 weeks, so I have more time to mentally prepare myself. 2 weeks of class and then a week off to travel. I actually had my first European travel experience (all on my own) this weekend. We didn’t have class on Friday, so on Thursday night I got on a plane and headed for Copenhagen to visit Miles and the other Mac students studying there. That makes it sound easy, but I actually had a hectic time at the airport because my direct flight was cancelled and they forgot to contact me. They got me on a flight with a stopover in Frankfurt, Germany, which I felt really lucky about, except for the fact that by the time all the paperwork was finished, I had less than ½ hour to make it on the plane. The Charles DeGaulle airport is not like Minneapolis, where the security is right at the beginning of the airport and then you go find you terminal and gate. Instead you have to go through the whole airport and then do the whole security thing right before boarding. So I was standing in an incredibly long line waiting to have my bags cleared while I watched people boarding the plane. Needless to say I was really relieved when I made it on the plane just before takeoff.

I was supposed to meet Miles at the metro station, but didn’t see him right away. As I looked for him, I was overwhelmed by the amount of bikes in Copenhagen. There were hundred of bikes parked all over the station and tons of people whizzing by in the bike lane. I was also really thrown off by this beeping noise that would get faster and then slower. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. When I finally found Miles (he was in the right spot, I wasn’t) he explained that they are at most crosswalks in Copenhagen to alert blind pedestrians when it is okay to cross the street. What a concept!

Friday, Miles had class but had enough time between to treat me to a very Danish lunch. We went to a smorborg (I don’t know how to spell that, but it means open faced sandwich) shop and bought a few to eat. It’s not a great place for vegetarians, because meat is in everything, but I was able to find one with egg and another with potato. They were really beautiful (I had to take a picture or two) and really messy to eat, especially since mine was covered in butter. I’m not sure how the Danes are so skinny because their food just seems so unhealthy. Especially since it is cheaper to buy a beer than it is a bottle of water or a soda in the 7/11 (hence the beer with the meal). Prices really were outrageous in Denmark, because they have such a high tax on everything. Luckily, Friday night we ate at Naomi’s dorm and on Saturday at Nate’s (the Northfield soccer player that goes to Mac) host family’s house.

While Miles was in class I wandered the city. It was a beautiful day and a really easy city to walk around (so small compared to Paris!). The National Museum is free and so I spent some time in their, going through an exhibit on Denmark through the ages. I learned a lot about Denmark and got to see the clothes and furniture of the different periods. They had one case full of peasant head pieces that looked just like the one that I had when I was little (the red one from Ansine, that had a matching one for my doll). I tried to take a picture, but with a flash it reflected and without it was too dark.

Naomi’s dorm was amazing. It was designed by some really famous architect and is apparently really hard to get into. Naomi was lucky because 1 or 2 spaces per section are reserved for international students. Otherwise, the waiting list is 200 or so people long. We made some Danish meal (like a skinny pancake with cheese and veggies rolled up inside) in her amazing kitchen. It was great to see Naomi, and to meet her friends (she had 2 visiting her for the weekend) and to introduce her to my friends who are also in Copenhagen, like Miles and Kate and Nate and Tim. Hopefully they will get to hang out again because they all seemed to get along.

Saturday Kate, Miles and I did some people watching. We decided that there are a lot of babies in Copenhagen; a lot of adults pushing strollers. And a surprising amount of guys pushing the strollers, by themselves, which is something that you don’t see as often in Minnesota. And of course, the Scandinavian good faith that allows people to park their babies outside while they go shopping. Such a different lifestyle in a big city, (or at least the capital of a country), where you don’t have to be afraid that someone might take your child if you leave them alone. Then we went to the gardens of the Rosenburg castle. It was a gorgeous day and there were swans and ducks swimming in the ponds. So strange to come upon castles just when out walking. We really don’t have anything like it in the U.S. It was Fashion Week in Copenhagen, but we never found the actual fashion show part of the event. We did come across some Danish rappers who had set up a public concert. It was funny to listen to because we didn’t understand it at all, and so were totally clueless as to what was being said when people would start cheering or laughing. Everyone speaks English in Copenhagen, but still, when they are speaking to one another, they speak in Danish and everything is written in Danish. It makes you very aware that you are a foreigner. I guess the same would be true in Paris, if I didn’t know French at all, a realization that made me appreciate my language skills (even as limited as they are).

Well, I’ve rambled on enough, but I did have a great time, and was very sad to leave Miles and everyone. It seems like it will be so long before I see them again. But I did have the nice thought when I arrived back in Charles DeGaulle that Paris no longer seems scarily unfamiliar. I felt like I was arriving home (in a manner of speaking), returning to where I feel comfortable. So I think that is a good sign that I’m settling into my life here and feeling an attachment to this place where I will end up spending 5 months of my life. Now it’s time to do some leisure reading (yes, that’s right, no homework this week!). Thank you all for writing to me. It’s so nice to hear that people are following what I’m doing. I feel so supported! Even you, Grandpa Ole, Grandma Bonnie, Grandma Elizabeth and Grampy Bill, when you don’t have a computer. Dad says that he sends my posts to you. I will try to post more often, so that you can have updates. Without homework this week, that may be a definite possibility.

Love to you all,

Liza

I know that I haven’t written in a long while, but I do have the good excuses of first being sick and then having Abbie here to visit. Sadly, she just went out the door to catch her train back to Montpellier. Having her here was so great because it made Paris seem like a vacation, and not just a city that I happen to be living in.

The first day (Wednesday) she had to be a great sport because I was still sick and wasn’t really up to getting out of bed. She went and did some exploring on her own and then came back and kept be company, which was wonderful after being confined to my small room, all alone, for the past day and a half. Plus, she brought movies along, and so we watched Mulan in French.

Thursday I was finally well enough to go to class. So poor Abbie had to again go off by herself and find something to do because I couldn’t be a good hostess. Luckily, Paris has a ton to do (I think that she made it to the Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, La Place de la Bastille, L’Arche de Triomphe all while I was in class!). I made it through the day without feeling awful or getting sick, and was just overall really excited to be up and around.

Abbie and I decided to hit up the Musée D’Orsay Thursday night, since it’s free after 8 on Thursdays for people under 25. It was amazing! It’s so huge, a renovated train station, and there’s so much to see. We only made it to the Impressionist section, but it was incredible. Rooms packed with Monet’s, Renoir’s, Van Gogh’s, and Degas’ and so on. Abbie took a million pictures (no flash of course) which I will have to steal once she puts them online, because my camera battery ran out just as we approached the museum. I’ve decided to take advantage of the free admission on Thursday nights and to go every week if I can. We were only there for an hour and probably only saw the tiniest fraction of stuff that there is to see. It would even be a great place to bring a book and read.

Friday I had to go on a tour of Belleville (yes, like in Triplets of Belleville) in the morning with my class, but fortunately Abbie could come along too. The unfortunate part about the tour was that it was raining, a lot, and cold, and all outside (except the part where the really nice tour guide took us to a café to get hot chocolates to help warm us up). I’m going to have to go back on a nicer day, so that I can really enjoy the neighborhood. It’s a very interesting mix of people. The upper part of the neighborhood is where the people called “bobos” live (bourgeois bohemian) and hang out in the trendy, artsy cafés and bars, and in the lower part it is really working class with a lot of immigrants. That part of Belleville has really been hit hard by the raids for illegal immigrants (sans papiers) especially in the schools, where the police will come and take children right out from there classes and have them deported immediately, even if they’ve been in France for years. There are signs and grafitti everywhere speaking out against the governments’ policy and I think that there was even a protest organized for this afternoon, if I remember correctly. It was the first time I’d really seen any of the places or people affected by immigration policy, and it made it that much more real than just seeing headlines in the paper. I’m sure I’m going to be seeing a lot more of that kind of thing when I start my internship in a few weeks.

When we finished with the tour, Abs and I ran home to get warm and dry, and to plan the rest of our day. We ended up wandering around near Notre Dame and looking in the huge department stores in that area. They’re so enormous and beautiful in their old building exteriors. Then we went grocery shopping for food to cook for dinner, but decided to wait to cook until after we made a visit to the Louvre. The Louvre is free on Friday nights after 6, and so we once again thought we should take advantage of the great deal.

The Louvre at night is amazing. The pyramids that cover the entrances are all lit up, as well as the buildings of the museum itself.

(the pyramids all lit up)

Like Musée D’Orsay, the Louvre is overwhelmingly huge and it’s really hard to decide what to see. Since Abbie doesn’t live in Paris and won’t have the chance to visit the museum again for a while, she got to call the shots (great for me, as I was feeling too indecisive). She decided that we had to see the Mona Lisa, just to see what all the fuss was about. It was pretty easy to find, since there are signs everywhere pointing out the way to see La Jaconde. There was a huge crowd in front of the painting, which made it look even smaller than it probably is. Abbie and I were both underwhelmed, or at least unable to figure out why that is the one thing in the entire museum that everyone flocks to see. We did have a good time taking pictures of the crowd around the Mona Lisa. I’ll put a couple of those below so you can see the large crowd and all the cameras as everyone tries to get a shot of the Mona Lisa.

We also took a ton of pics of the other paintings that have the misfortune of being in the same room as the great lady. They absolutely dwarf her and are utterly ignored by everyone.

(just to give you an idea of how large the paintings are in the Louvre)

(one of the huge paintings that no one looks at because they are too busy crowding around the Mona Lisa)

(the crowd taking pictures...notice how small the Mona Lisa is!)

If you really like renaissance painting, then the Louvre is great. If you’re not that crazy about it (like me) then that whole wing with the Mona Lisa in it is impressive but not that captivating. After going to Musée D’Orsay, it was very clear in my mind which museum I’d like to spend more time in. But, there are a ton of great statues all over the Louvre, huge rooms full, and Abbie and I had a great time not only looking at the great artistry but also taking pictures posing like the statues. At one point we attracted a small group of admirers that kept following us around to see how we would pose next. They must have thought we were pretty weird. We did have a great time. We even convinced Daniel to do one, which was pretty funny. I think that I actually enjoyed the sculptures way more by taking those silly pictures than if we would have just walked through room after room of marble figures.

(Abbie as my favorite statue, La Victoire de Samothrace)

(Abbie as the Venus de Milo...this is where we attracted our fan club)

(Daniel joins in too)

(Abbie as the Dying Slave)

Today Abbie and I got up relatively early so that we would have enough time to fit in a trip to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. It was beautiful out today, really sunny (even if it was a little cold) and perfect for wandering through the winding streets around the basilica. It seemed like everyone in the world was there, but I suppose that’s what we get for going to Sacre Coeur on a Saturday. The church is beautiful, inside and out, and according to Abbie, much less touristy/sold out than Notre Dame (like for instance, you are not allowed to take any pictures in Notre Dame and silence is required). It still functions as a church with mass everyday, and has an abbey of nuns. Mass started while we were still inside and so we got to hear a little of the organ music, which was really amazing. Outside, on the steps of the church there is a great view of Paris (the pictures below). These were the same steps Amelie visited so many times during that movie (neithr Abbie nor I could stop comparing the real area around Sacre Coeur to the one shown in the movie, since they don’t seem to be exactly the same…there’s no carnival, but there is a carousel).

The neighborhood around the basilica is really interesting. At the top of the stairs it is very touristy, with tons of expensive gift shops selling postcards and souvenirs. There are also a ton of artists’ shops and a square full of artists trying to sell their work or draw your portrait. It felt almost like the art fair at home.

At the bottom of the stairs there are a ton of souvenir shops as well, but they are less expensive and mixed in with miscellaneous other cheap stores, like discount linens and clothes. It was like walking from one world into another, going from the top to the bottom of Sacre Coeur. One moment you were in the heart of a tourist trap, and the next you were in a working class Parisian neighborhood like you find all over.

(Sacre Coeur)

(view of Paris)

(artists' stands)

(the stairs of Sacre Coeur)

(the carousel at the foot of the basilica)

We didn’t have much else on our list of things that we wanted to do together before Abbie had to catch her train, but she did have her heart set on going to the Pont Mirabeau while she was in Paris (it’s a bridge, and there’s a poem about it that we had to memorize in one of our high school French classes. She can still recite it). The bridge has a great view of the Tour Eiffel and of Paris’ own Statue of Liberty (yes they have one, it’s just a lot smaller than the one in NYC).

(Pont Mirabeau)

(the other Statue of Liberty)

We ended the afternoon at Les Halles, an enormous outdoor/indoor mall with really amazing glass architecture. Just looking at the buildings is fun, let alone going past all the shops inside. We had a really fun time going through some French toy store, which turned out to sell almost the exact same things as ones in the U.S., but did have very cute children’s books.

(the amazing Les Halles)

So yes, that was my long weekend with Abbie. It was so wonderful to have her here, I wish that she were studying in Paris instead of Montpellier. But, it does give me a great excuse to take the train to the south of France once it gets a little warmer. So there’s that to look forward to. Plus, doing all this sightseeing has given me great ideas for what I want to see again or do again and what things will be fun to do when other friends come to visit.

Wow, this has turned out really long. I will stop there because I need to start writing my paper that is due Monday (it was nice not to think about school while Abbie was here!). And yes, I will be gloomily going to bed instead of staying up til all hours of the night to watch the Super Bowl. But Dad and Keith, I expect a full account!

Love to you all, and miss you very much!

Liza