Coup de Foudre

Coup de Foudre literally means "A flash of lightning" but is used in french as "love at first sight." 

As I've been so busy running around the city in high heels being entirely chic and eating croissants and sipping cafe au lait by the Seine and strolling the Champs d'Elysees at night I have not gotten around to the obligitoire abroad blog. And while cafe culture is slightly interrupted by the glaring modernity of a macbook, I do truly enjoy writing and reflecting on my experiences, so I am eager to get back in the habit. I have been here for a little over a week now, "settling in"--which is an excuse to take long naps and ignore nervous texts from your parents. I've only just started truly exploring the city with the intent of a habitant- finding my favorite cafes, more affordable grocery stores, cute boutiques, etc. It would be a pain (and not that interesting) to just regurgitate my minute-to-minute adventures of the last ten days, but here are a few highlights of my new lifestyle.

One of my favorite things about Europe is how close everything is to each other and how accessible it all is (kind of like how I felt when I moved to New England from Alaska). I'm really looking forward to taking weekend trips to Amsterdam or Barcelona or Prague to visit other friends and have friends come to me. It worked out quite nicely that my friend Will, who studied in Madagascar for the summer and is on his way to Morocco for the semester, had a week-long layover in Paris that happened to coincide with my arrival! Traveling and exploring with friends is always interesting because you learn things about each other and about the place that you wouldn't have otherwise. Will was traveling with a buddy en route to Ireland and we spent my first few days strolling through Montmartre and the Champ de Mars. We went to the steps of Sacre Coeur--the big white church on the tallest hill in Paris--one night. We brought a bottle of wine and were able to just sit on the steps with hundreds of other people admiring the Parisian skyline. It's a fairly touristy area and there are a lot of vendors selling Eiffel Tower keychains (4 for one euro, and then you can talk them down) and standard knockoff crap. They also have vendors walking around with a 12-pack of Heineken, selling beers! Mike and Will very effectively bargained them down to one euro per beer (they started at 3) and we chatted with the vendors who come from Bangladesh and all work together. 

However, there was a bit of a skirmish that must have stemmed from one vendor encroaching on the turf of another or something. All of a sudden, these guys are yelling, running down the steps, and chucking GLASS BOTTLES at each other, amidst dozens of tourists sheilding their heads from the falling glass shards. We're not entirely sure what happened but the guys ended up pretty bloody--one guy had a cut running from one cheek to his mouth to the other cheek. Ambluances came and treated them on scene, but it didn't really look like anyone was getting arrested...it was an entertaining way to end the evening! Paris is very safe though and there is very little violent crime, just apparently a lot of pickpocketers on the metro.

Shakespeare and Co. 

We spent the weekend relaxing and exploring a little. It is nice to get here earlier than the rest of the students on the program because we are in no rush to figure things out and by the time they get here we will be experts. I went to Shakespeare and Company, which is the famous English-language bookstore on the Seine where Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and other ex-pats of the Lost Generation used to meet and talk literature. The lit nerd in me exploded, and i can't wait to get my hands on every book ever. Shakespeare and Co is a bit of a tourist trap now though, so all the books were exorbitantly priced and I will try to look elsewhere. I became addicted to Hemingway a couple years ago and took a class on the Lost Generation writers last semester with my favorite professor. So being here in the city where they lived and breathed and wrote is really magical. Yes, I'm currently channeling Owen Wilson a la Midnight in Paris. I'll let you know when I find the taxi that will take me back to the 20s.

We've had classes called "methodologique" at SciencesPo this week which is getting me back in school mode a bit. But with the bar crawls every night and classes for 2-4 hours every morning I've been spending my afternoons sleeping off my "jet lag." I'm eager to start having a real schedule and start to plan my semester here so that I take full advantage of everything both here in Paris and throughout Europe. I'm sure the time will absolutely fly by.

I'm Coming Home

One thing I do is travel a lot.  Whether it’s to and from school or somewhere slightly more exotic, I’m pretty used to spending long hours in airports across the country.  I know the Seattle airport better than some places in my hometown, and I’m always likely to run into someone I know, simply because it’s an automatic step in getting to or from Anchorage.  Stepping into the “Pacific Marketplace”—Sea-Tac’s dining and shopping area—makes me automatically feel one step closer to home. Heading to the east coast so often, I get to experience many different airports:  O’Hare, Newark, Minneapolis-St Paul, Denver, etc.  There are a lot of different ways you can hop, skip, and jump across the country, especially when it takes at least three planes to get anywhere. 

I’m flying home today (!!!!) for the summer, and my 16 hours of flying have taken me through Bradley, O’Hare, Portland, and finally Anchorage.  With plenty of time to kill both in the air and in the terminal, here are some things I’ve cataloged about the nature of air travel.

Airport food:  There’s honestly nothing better.  Every layover gives you an excuse to explore the terminal, killing time, and searching for some unhealthy snack or meal to tide you over for the next four-hour flight.  I almost always go to Dunkin Donuts at Bradley, even if its not breakfast time.  Today I went, ordered my iced coffee and egg sandwich, and realized I would not see another DD for several months.  (East coast phenomenon.)  There’s every option, from Chinese takeout to fast food to “Chili’s Too,” of you want to do the sit down thing.  Since layovers are all about killing time, I don’t have to feel guilty about exploring each terminal’s options.

People watching: Easily the most entertaining thing to do at an airport.  This is gonna be a conglomerate of every person the world has to offer—international, business, families, and wackos.  Examining people’s outfit choices are interesting too—I’ll never understand people who wear stiletto heels and dresses in the airport, looking like they’re more prepared to head downtown than across the country.  There are also the crazy outfits spotted in any crowd, but somehow exemplified by the fact that these people are simply sitting on their ass for any number of hours.  Are the maxi skirts, pajamas, goth getups, etc, really necessary?  I guess some people feel a need to make a statement wherever they go.  There are also those classic airport staples of monks or other religious folk spreading their word throughout the land. 

Shopping:  Commercial America has really capitalized on people’s boredom.  It’s always a thrill when walking off the jet way feels equivalent to stepping foot in a luxury mall.  Seattle, Denver, and Minneapolis all have notable shopping areas.  When flying home for winter break, I got all my Christmas shopping done at the Gap in the Philadelphia airport.  It killed time and saved me from the hassle when I returned home.  Denver has a Crocs store, always fun to gawk at, and Seattle has the best functional art store I’ve ever seen: Fireworks.  It’s got quirky books, home décor, accessories, etc and I can always spend plenty of time there. 

Airplane neighbors:  You never know what you’re gonna get.  I always hope I snag an aisle seat next to a cute guy, or really anyone my age.  I dread the chatters—older women who want to know every detail of my young life, somehow reliving their younger decades by grilling me about mine.  It’s always a gamble when you sit down—do you make polite eye contact, sometimes seen as an invitation for a non-stop conversation on your 6-hour non-stop flight?  Or do you quickly avoid the situation by jamming in headphones and pretending to sleep?  It depends on my mood—I don’t mind a few minutes of hi, where are you from, where are you headed, but I never know when its going to stop.  There’s also the option of being surrounded by snorers, coughers, and screaming babies.  I’m actually surrounded by one of each at this very moment.

Traveling can be fun, or at least a bearable part of the journey home.  As my calves start to cramp up from sitting in one spot for too long and I realize I still have a three-hour layover ahead of me, I start to get antsy and just crave my own bed.  In just seven short hours, I will be reunited with Alaska!  And that’s a good enough prospect to keep me trekking through concourse A, terminal K, and gate 37.