Another foreign adventure begins. I am comfortably ensconced in the rented apartment (I confess I take a different trajectory to it each time, which will continue for awhile as I get accustomed to the little warren of streets only a block or so from the Seine) and I had a good meeting with a couple of the Foyer Internationale staff yesterday afternoon after shooting over from Brussels, where I had some sweet time with brotha Julius and the girls, just as I'd hoped. The train was a half hour late, which only meant that I had a bit more time to yak with J, and then it was a fast hour and a half straight to Paris-Nord. The attacks of the past year manifested themselves in National Police i.d. checks on the train, and comically-youthful dudes with berets, flak-jackets and AR-15s serving as A Presence in the stations.
I seriously cannot believe how quiet this place is, even with windows open. It’s a single room, but a big room, and because there are windows (dormers) on both sides, it feels more spacious than it is. Because it’s at the very top of a listed building (the narrow stairs to the 3eme are historic, comically so), there are immense beams visible, though the decor is comfortably spare and modern, and the walk under the roof to get to the door is distinctly unprepossessing). I don’t think I’ll be undertaking any gourmet meals here in the galley-kitchen, but I’ve made strong coffee, eaten some yogurt, and can whip up omelettes or simple meals without a problem. Pictures will follow.
The weather is gray and the Parisians are fed up with it, but last night after dinner with Natacha near the Hotel de Ville, the slanting sunlight turned things to magic and on the bridge we passed a guy proposing, I suppose European style (they had a stroller), getting off his knees and slipping a ring onto her finger. It was literally happening just as we walked by, one of those strange and wonderful encounters straight out of a movie.
The river is still so high that the bateaux-mouches are not yet running. I haven’t walked or run the esplanades yet, but from the bridge that N and I crossed you could see the water lapping just a foot below what is normally a sizable drop—if you did as the Parisian young’uns do and hung your feet over as you sipped your wine, they’d be soaked. That said, I’ll take this over oppressive heat, at least for a while.
Yesterday afternoon on my walk-around at the Foyer I had a pleasant contact with one of the directrices, who seemed impressed both by my attempts at French and by my apparent willingness to play ball with them in terms of enforcing the rules of the place. The key will be to clarify to these kids that this is a residence and not a hotel, and to really set the tone early and often that the lamentably common Lumpen-behavior of American Students Abroad just won’t cut it. I’ll be doing my orientation this afternoon (I’ve already had a message from one student with a missed flight) and passing along these and other Uncle Charles policies, before doing a bit of a walk-around in the exquisitely touristique ‘hood along the Boulevard St Michel between the Luxembourg Gardens and Notre Dame.
OK that is my allotted time, and Peregrinator gets rolling again. Though this course won’t have as many moving parts as the Grand Tour, there are still myriad details to work through, not to mention a constant impetus to read and inform myself about the subject matter so that I am not winging it academically!
No comments:
Post a Comment