Tuesday's class continued some of the good work we had done the previous day, reaping the benefits of an increased trust in the group. In the evening we had our Seine tour on the Vedettes de Pont-Neuf, which gives a pretty good deal for groups: I think it turned out 4.50 euros per person, with the 20th person free, a considerable savings from the online tickets or, god forbid, the walk-up price. We had a sizable passel of people, with a lot more of the Americans in Paris class joining us (only six came last year, compared to 20 this year), so I divided the group purchases into 30 for the 9:00 and 20 for the 9:30, figuring (rightly) that the huge group was too unwieldy, AND that some Scheissköpfer would drift in late.
I left Tiffany and Kathy to accompany the second group, gladly selfish that this way I might get to bed a little earlier, as I had been fighting off what I feared was the same chest crud that floored me last year. I'm sure it was my usual allergy-induced bronchial crap, with each dose of cigarette smoke and badly tuned diesel another insult to the already sensitive airways. Happens virtually every trip over here--and with the hotel's bad air, I was truly hurting. Hence my urge to get the sleep I needed, something I didn't do last year, and paid the price with fever, shakes, and Grey-Poupon-productive cough on the last part of the Paris leg.
The boat trip was truly a tonic for me and for the students, far more so than I expected: I was worried that the Americans in Paris group, having been in the city for more than a week, would disdain such touristic activities (the pretense behind that course, to some extent, is to move from tourist to expat-inhabitant just like others before them, but with the result sometimes being that weird hybrid phenomenon of the Self-Denying American, who buys Eurotrash clothing, speaks softly or not at all, and ostentatiously carries a Le Monde or a French novel, and in some extreme cases clumsily attempts to blend in with furtive non-inhaled Gauloises). Instead, they all seemed to love it, and were refreshingly grateful for me for shouting them the trip. Even if I can't expense their part from GT funds, I would do it myself in a heartbeat.
It brought up an interesting insight from a couple of them, which we expanded on next day in class: they had been running around the city seeing these sights from street level, fighting off buses and traffic and tourists and vendors, yet, here on the boat the sights came to them, quietly (just the drone of a not too obnoxious guide on the P.A.) and from angles they wouldn't see any other way. Add to it the late-evening sun becoming dusk, turning all the bridges to warm golden glow, and you get some unexpected Paris magic for an hour.
When it was over I avoided the gelato-temptation and walked home along the quai and then up past the Luxembourg, and back to the Citadines apart-hotel to crash.
Wednesday, July 14, Bastille Day, was probably my toughest day of the trip physically and psychically: I was freaking in the morning, coughing and knowing I was in trouble, starting that unproductive worry-about-worry cycle after not sleeping well again. We had class in the morning, and it went well, but I was still really uneasy. I went upstairs to the library of the Foyer and was determined to knock out some marking, and that's when the weather fun started. Sitting in this beautiful dark-wood-paneled library with its views over the city, I just holed up and marveled as the rain began, then thunder, then more rain, wind, and more and more. I had that snug feeling you get in the mountains, in a good tent, just relaxing and not feeling guilty about not moving. Once it eased up I went downstairs, hustled to the Metro stop a few meters up the Boulevard St Michel, and headed back.
That's when I realized the storm was serious: there were hundreds and hundreds of travelers in the Gare Montparnasse, some waiting for trains to Brittany of course, but others hanging around the exits waiting til the rain let up so they could get on with their day.
The glass ceiling was a waterfall as I looked up from the inside, and various minor leaks sprouted SNCF buckets underneath them. Within a couple of hours, though, the skies were clearing, and unfortunately my room was going to heat up. More marking, a run over through the Luxembourg and over to the Foyer to drop off a "Supplemental Contract" for printer-less Kathy to distribute to some of the problematical folks from the other program (vomiting out of the window after loud revelry--not a good thing), and I was actually pretty much done for the day. I put in earplugs, pounded a couple of Tylenol PMs, downed some water, and crashed out for the best sleep I'd had in weeks.
Thursday was a guided tour of Versailles by bus from the hotel, to some extent an extravagance that I will have to investigate for subsequent trips: yes it's nice to have a set visit time, and be dropped right at the entrance and driven over to the Trianons for the afternoon, but is it worth the expense? I am thinking not, especially since the guide we had was the same as last year and is a bit of a twit. It's also a great opportunity for more duckling screwups, and we had more this year than last: a couple of hapless ones almost missed the tour entrance, allegedly having been by the meeting point at the time and not seeing anyone (you have to be kidding me), so immediately they have the great idea to go back to the place where they were, where no one ever said we were going to meet! Fantastic.
Then of course there weren't quite as many "whispers"--the little headset dealies that allow Antoine to speak in a less stentorian voice into his mike, and everyone with a headset can hear him--as the sullen vendor had promised, so mercifully I tagged along through the hordes of tourists and only saw the outstretched camera-hands clicking madly away. As usual, the place elicits an ambivalent reaction for me: you can't help being blown away by the sheer opulence, but you also can't keep silent the annoying voice-over of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Stewpid, 17th-Century Edition, coming to you today from Versailles, where the Bourbon Boob Louis and his mistresses cavort in gold-leafed splendor as all around them the people die of starvation…"
I should add that I had to make a couple of on-the-spot decisions about where and when we would meet the driver for lunch, as I realized the driver and the guide had hatched a little scam to make a few more Euros: the driver let us off before the bus parking, and was going to go off to the outskirts of town until Antoine called him rather than forking over the 20 or 30 euros to park with the rest of the behemoths on the mind-bogglingly huge expanse of cobblestones baking in the sun; that way they could pocket the allocation for that parking, very clever. But I decided that rather than have lunch there in the front, we would gather our picnics and go to the Trianons, which turned out to be much calmer, down by the water and away from the buses and crowds…. If I hadn't followed the conversation, I would have probably been locked into less good of a plan.
Antoine's gig was pretty easy, I think: he can't actually be a guide in the Trianons, so I guess he earned his dough fetching brochures for us and admonishing the little demons to take their time and not sprint through the rooms. ; he also tried unsuccessfully to track down the dude who just had to go #2 before we went to the Petit Trianon and gardens and Hameau, and thus missed the entrance (but talked his way in anyway). This kid is now risking to be the butt of jokes, as he is number 1 on our alphabetical count-off, but is rarely on time--he just slopes off at weird moments despite my threats and cajolery. People in the group are now threatening him with a leash….
As it turns out, we survived quite well, the weather wasn't so blasted hot as last year (rendering the grotto not quite as welcome-cool), and we actually all did make the 3:30 rendezvous at the bus (guess who was the last, at 3:29:45?). I somewhat resignedly tipped Antoine as he alit near the Trocadero, and less reluctantly tipped Af the driver, who had shown some applause-inducing virtuoso thread-the-needle skills on the way home in traffic. Then it was another run, exploring south and east before returning for a lap around Luxembourg, and then shower-dinner-sleep.
Friday was the last Paris class, with its paper (on Versailles in light of our readings and class discussions), but afterwards I heard about a roommate crisis and a cut foot that better not get infected. The former involved a too-clingy student and her roommate who could not set boundaries well enough; the latter was a rather dippy person who'd worn sandals to the World Cup final bigscreen broadcast and then encountered a sharp metal bit of a gate. Taking care of the roommate thing involved a delicate conversation with another set of roommates, explaining the situation, praising them for their maturity and stability and asking if one of them could handle the problem person. To my great relief, the answer was yes, without seeming to stigmatize the clingy person. For the cut, I made sure she was keeping it clean and dressed, and made sure she got antibiotic cream on it. Ahh, the ducklings.
The time here in Les Houches has been a tonic, with a couple of decent classes held in the overflow / meeting room downstairs (very nice to have them comment on how Shelley's "Mont Blanc, or Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni" made a lot more sense after our expedition to Montenvers / Mer de Glace on Tuesday), and a bunch of kids doing wacky things like paragliding and canyoning and rafting in their good chunks of free time. As I said, I had a fair amount of marking to do before the first class, and then journals and other things after that, but each day I took at least an hour and went for a run around here, with the usual brutal uphills getting off the valley floor. 
