I'm currently sitting on the TGV, ready to tell the story of the fun-filled, exciting and expensive weekend that was my weekend in Paris. Where do I begin?
Thursday, I left Montpellier around noon and hopped on the TGV to Paris. The train ride consisted of general note-taking from a book I had checked out in Montpellier and attempts at mixing together a few tracks with my mouse n keyboard (although my iPod earbuds are now utterly useless for some reason). Getting to Gare de Lyon was easy enough, and it took, surprisingly, about one-third of that time to Metro myself over to La Défense (whereupon I got thoroughly lost trying to find Chez Parent in Courbevoie). Several phone calls later, I arrived at the house of my gracious hosts (thanks!) and relaxed briefly before trekking back on the Metro over to la Bibliothèque François Mitterand only to get further lost trying to find the Paris center of University of Chicago. Once found, I sought familiar faces, finding one and gaining three (you know who you are). I sat with my new familiar faces and thoroughly was reminded of life back at good ole UofC during the glorious lecture deconstructing the Celtic craze presented by Michael Dietler (Celticism, Celtitude and Celticity: The Consumption of the Past in the Age of Globalization). After several glasses of wine, an awkward conversation with an alum and a trip to a nearby British bar, I returned to La Défense, ready to explore Paris on the morrow.
That leaves us at Friday. Getting a bit of a later start than I had anticipated, I made my way to the Louvre and skipped the whole Museum thing to go find the Ministry of Immigration. I, of course, got severely lost and found that my general sense of direction could only carry me so far, for I was in the right area but I knew not the address. (Silly me!) I eventually did find the Ministry (thanks Magali) but I was forced to only take a picture of the shiny, gold plaque adorned with the Ministry's lengthy title. Not ready to give up on getting lost, I decided to go find the office of Agence française de développement (AFD) hoping to miraculously speak to someone relevant there (unlikely). This time I was prepared with an address, but this time the street was not in my map. I walked probably half a mile past where I thought AFD's building was only to turn around in frustration and spot the "afd" logo glittering next to the metro stop at which I arrived. The visitors center at AFD was not bad, there were some neat pamphlets and I realized that they must have quite a lot of money (from the government), because the building was really nice and large. But honestly, about all I got from that trip was tired feet and several pamphlets.
Friday night, after returning to La Défense, I quickly went back over to grab dinner with my UChicago connection in Paris in some kind of Chinatown nearish to their place of residence (at Cité). The Pho was good, but I was unable to convince anyone to go to the "sporadic club" by the Louvre later. After dinner was over, I ventured to find this sporadic club (Piano Cosmic). I did indeed find it, but was forced to wait for about an hour until its opening (I wasn't that early, they started late). Once I finally got in, I was wooed by the sweet, soothing bass of some awesome, groovy tech/deep house until around 6 in the morning. While it wasn't that great being by myself, the trip was rendered valuable walking back to my metro stop around 5:45 as I took a nice picture of la Seine at crepuscule.
Saturday began late. I decided to go Centre Pompidou and the library there. I did both, found a great book with a good overview of the codéveloppement issue (from la Sorbonne) and thoroughly enjoyed the museum and gallery at the Centre. (See Fbook for pictures). I tried to meet my new UChicago peeps for dinner or something, but phone calls were seemingly not functioning. As a result, I stayed home Saturday night, made dinner and watched Kaamelott on TV for several hours.
I woke up relatively early this morning, packed my bags, locked up the house (thanks again!) and hopped over to l'Arc de Triomphe to witness some of the pre-final-stage-of-the-Tour frenzy. Thoroughly frenzied, I followed the orders of my UChicago pals (new name every time) and met up somewhere near the Louvre so I could stand and look at the awesome street the Tour riders would be riding on. About thirty minutes later, I hopped back on the Metro to Gare de Lyon, got on the train, finished my little mashup/mix idea (Cook Them - Lil B + Soulja Boy vs. Ramadanman) and began writing this lengthy post.
In other news, this kid next to me will NOT stop farting. Someone please save me.
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