The day of the museum death march and other stories

I'm pretty much failing at blogging regularly, largely due to the fact that my professor is crazy and assigns 200-250 pages of reading a night. That said, there is just way too much to do and explore in Paris – even without my professor's crazy amounts of work (and the additional fun of writing a B.A.), I'd probably be in the same boat.. I constantly feel overwhelmed (in a good way!); the downside to this inundation of sense and sound is that I feel like I have no time to process what is going on around me.

Before coming to Paris, I meant to create an experimental-writing-type blog to, well, mimic or ventriloquize Walter Benjamin. By writing like Benjamin, I hoped to parse out my thoughts about childhood/nostalgia/modernity/Paris/urban environments... but, well, I started said blog a few days ago, and the first entry is a poorly written Benjamin biography. With any luck, I'll actually get this second blog off the ground (easily accessible through my profile page; I'll plug it when I have more interesting stuff written. That is, if you feel like you can put up with my Benjamin-obsession and my not-so-lucid writing).

Anyway, I'm going to attempt to summarize my past week in pictures!

Last week, my friend and I went to L'as du Fallafel.
Located in Marais, L'as du Fallafel is Lenny Kravitz's favorite falafel place. The first time I went, I wasn't all that hungry; besides, I thought that French falafel probably couldn't stack up to some good ol' New York falafel. Boy, was I wrong! The falafel from L'as du Fallafel is way different than the falafel I'm used to – the falafel themselves are made of more finely ground ingredients, and the sandwich version of the falafel is filled with fried eggplant and lightly pickled cabbage – and is absolutely delightful! I think, perhaps, because I have an unhealthy love of eggplant. I went back to Marais on Tuesday morning in an attempt to buy 8 euro boots (would have worked too, if not for my huge calves. Four years of fencing make it pretty impossible to buy well-fitted boots), and ended up with this:
The Maccabee beer sold at the restaurant is also absolutely DELICIOUS. According to wikipedia, Maccabee is also sold in the States. You have no idea how happy this makes me.

On Wednesday, we headed over to a pub... so that I could complete my homework assignment. Yes, that's right. For French this Tuesday, I have to give a presentation on a bar and, uh, what could be more French than a British pub? Righto. I missed (and still miss) beer. We ended up at the Frog in Bercy Village, a lovely little (ok, not so little) establishment that was once a wine cellar. The Frog is actually a chain of pubs located around France, and each branch of the Frog chain has a different character (largely due to the different locales and architecture of each branch):

I think that I'll be making a trip out to a different bar every Wednesday... except for this Wednesday, when I'll need to be huddled in my room, reading and preparing for a class presentation-thing. I'd also like to add that Bercy Village is so very, very charming. Things seem a bit overpriced and touristy, but given how quaint and adorable the area is, I'm pretty sure I'll be spending a lot more time in Bercy Village. Besides, happy hour makes the impact a wee bit lighter on the wallet!

Thursday afternoon involved some school-sponsored drinking, otherwise known as the “cheese and wine reception.” Reception my ass. We were basically fed some AMAZING cheese and some very, very yummy wine. Rather, we nibbled on cheese and drank about 5 glasses of wine each. I finished off some of my friend's glasses because, well, you just can't let good wine go to waste!
I walked out of the tasting with a few new cheesy favorites. My favorite of the afternoon was the Corsica cheese, which is apparently called Fleur du Maquis (or Brindamour or Brin d'Amour. I spent a lot of time figuring this out). During the course of writing this entry, I have also discovered the existence of an online cheese encyclopedia. Again, indescribable happiness!

Thursday night involved another night at Mix. We missed the midnight no cover deadline by 2 seconds (we were the first people who had to pay the stupid cover. Ugh. This means I'll be eating hella ramen for a while), but despite the unexpected need to pay (girls shouldn't have to pay for anything at a club!), we had fun. Granted, a bunch of skeevy European men tried to hit on me (see previous post) and I had to, uh, resort to giving one a fake name so I could get him to stop talking to me. Anyway, I need to figure out when/where other international students or ladies nights take place...

After getting back from the club at 4am, I woke up at 8 because I just couldn't sleep. My professor decided to take us to the Musée Maillol AND the Pompidou today, resulting in a 7 hour museum death march. I love museums but really, really hate going to more than one museum a day AND feeling rushed about it – I think that the point of museums is to observe and contemplate, which really doesn't happen when you're being herded from one room to the next/your feet are KILLING you.

We were supposed to go out to Le Queen tonight (hooray for gay clubs!), but due to extreme fatigue (otherwise known as I don't sleep. Like, ever), I ended up staying in. Besides, we just found out that La Loco doesn't charge ladies a cover fee on Friday nights; I guess we'll pop over to Queen during one of their ladies nights to save on cash. Tomorrow will involve some sort of fun deal after a full day of reading, writing, and shopping. Again, Paris, you are awesome!

xoxo,
D