It's All Happening

Alright, it’s become fairly obvious that my blog is suffering due to time constraints. Two things happened today that reminded me that I should be enjoying this experience and sharing it with my nearest and dearest (you). First, Margy nagged me to death about posting. Hee hee. I’m teasing. Then, Anne reminded me that I am supposed to be at school during the week and enjoying culture when I’m not in class. After a couple of stressful weeks, I somewhat forgot that I should be making the most of this experience and sharing my adventures with you.

So let’s reeee-wind and get this posting party started. Settle in because you’ve got a lot to read. Oh, and I want to know which one of you has been reading this blog from Latin America.

BFC, 100 year-old Korean Wine and Party at Nond's Palace
Friday, September 21st

My friends Damian and Stephanie and I decided to celebrate completing our Financial Accounting mid-term with lunch at BFC (Best Fried Chicken) near school. Damian and I had been joking about BFC since day 1 of classes and finally curiosity got the best of both of us. Best Fried Chicken is a bold statement when someone like me comes across it. It might very well be the best fried chicken in Cergy, in France or in all of Europe as far as I know, but simply Best Fried Chicken? Doubtful.

BFC is also Gyro Sandwicherie, a fact that we discovered only when we got close enough to examine the situation. How can fried chicken and gyros share one space? I still don’t know, but apparently they can. I think many people would have walked away from BFC at this point, but not us. Actually, I’m not sure how many people even think to walk toward BFC at all. Fearless, we entered and ordered a big ole family meal that came with 800 french fries. I was nervous that instead of BFC it would be WFC (Worst Fried Chicken). However, BFC isn’t so bad. It’s no Mrs. Winners or even KFC, but BFC adds its own little spiciness that makes its fried chicken a Cergy delight. Don’t worry, I won’t make any of you go when you come visit. It’s not that good.

After waking up from my BFC coma, I met pretty much all of the Asian kids in my class at a Korean restaurant in Paris. Unfortunately, I missed dinner – most likely from oversleeping – but I did have a few minutes to sample two kinds of Korean wine, one famous for being aged 100 years, and learn some things about Korean dining culture. Some of you, and you’ll know who you are, will be delighted to learn that among good friends, putting your empty glass on your head is really a sign of needing a refill. Needless to say, Jung-Ick was a little surprised when I responded to his question, “Do you know what you do in Korea when you want someone to fill up your glass?” by putting my glass on top of my head. I was doing it as a joke, but it turns out I was actually right!

After dinner, we all headed to a party at Nond’s apartment right outside of Paris. Nond decided to throw a birthday party for Ginger, Vanessa and himself since they all had birthdays this week. Nond’s apartment, is actually Nond’s family’s apartment and it’s huge. I contemplated hiding out in one of the bedrooms. I think I could have lived there for three weeks before he noticed. Here are some pictures from the party:

Party at Nond's

And some from the weeks before:

Paris

Alumni Cocktails: A Story of Hope and Despair

Saturday, September 22nd

On Saturday, we had a networking cocktail party in Paris with the local alumni. No alumni showed up for quite a while, which was a little unnerving and a little annoying since most everybody was still tired from the night before. Finally, a few appeared. Unfortunately, the first two alums I spoke with had just graduated in July and still didn’t have jobs. Yikes! I don’t like being unemployed. No alums, then unemployed alums? I became even more tired. Fortunately, I then found employed alums with good jobs – a ray of hope for the year to come. Then, Jody’s wallet got stolen.

Heaven in a Macaroon and Graduation with Chantal Thomass

Monday, September 24th

On Monday, our class was “invited,” as in told it was mandatory, to the graduation ceremony for the Class of 2007. I was sort of in a mood that day and didn’t want to go. Then, because I didn’t want to go, I piddled around, ended up drying my dress with a hairdryer and making myself late for the train. Nice. In a scene reminiscent from my early days in New York, I attempted to buy a train ticket with coins (and small coins at that). Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the machine did not accept 2 and 1 cent pieces so I was 5 cents short. A line had formed behind me. I had 1 minute to catch the train. It took 30 seconds for all of my coins to drop back out of the machine. What’s a girl to do but use her non-Paris ticket to get on the train and just worry about it later?

In France, you must use your getting-on ticket to get out of the station. Since my getting-on ticket wasn’t for Paris, I couldn’t technically get out of the station once I arrived in Paris, but that is a small detail. The machine should accept all coins. It’s the machine’s fault. I thought I would just crawl through the first turn-style and that I would then find a ticket machine for the metro. Knowing that someone would hold the little metro turn-style door open for me, I followed a man out of the RER station section – “Merci! Merci!’ as I crawled under the turn-style in my nice dress. Oh, so classy. Oddly enough, there was not a metro ticket machine to be found anywhere. I was forced to crawl under yet another turn-style. I did end up on the metro and ran into Gabby on the way out of the station. Luckily, the exit doors were broken and I didn’t have to do any more crawling.

We were required to arrive to the graduation ceremony 3 hours before it began. I’m still not entirely sure why. I tied the diplomas together with red ribbon and then we took a class picture in the garden of the fancy Cercle de L’Union Interalliée, where the fancy 2007 graduation ceremony took place, which is on the fancy Rue de Faubourg Saint-Honoré. After picture taking, we were allowed to go for about an hour. A group of us walked over to Ladurée, the most fantastic, dreamy, wonderful tea house in the world. I’m in love. I had rose-flavored tea, which was divine, and 3 of the most heavenly macaroons. The best best best was the caramel au beurre salé (salty butter caramel) macaroon. Contrary to BFC, I will be taking all visitors to Ladurée for caramel macaroons. Everyone should have one. It’s happiness in a macaroon.

After tea and cookies, we headed back to the graduation (my friend Diane took a quick 10 minutes to introduce me to the Roger Vivier store – my now second favorite place behind Ladurée), which was boring – too many speeches and not enough fun. Chantal Thomass was the highlight of the night for me though. Among other things, she makes very beautiful umbrellas and she is sublimely French with a straight black bob, dark glasses, and high high-heels. I introduced myself to her at the party afterwards, but I was too star struck to say much of anything. She said that she promised to come to class and talk for an hour. I’m looking forward to that.

The boredom of the ceremony had all but erased the macaroon high, and by the time the post-ceremony party had started, I was back into whatever mood I began the day with. À la ESSEC MBA Luxe pomp and circumstance, waiters offered us champagne from silver trays right as we came to the top of the stairs. Champagne never hurt anyone’s mood. And, then, I walked over to a big French window that looked out over the garden below and on to a magnificent view of the Eiffel Tower all lit up. I am in France!

Graduation

Career Conundrums

Thursday, September 27th

Today I had my first meeting with the career counselor. This story isn’t really interesting. I told her I was interested in jewelry, watches and wine, but I’ve since changed my mind. I’ll have more to reveal after my second meeting in November.

A Trip to Les Puces in Paris, the Hobo, the Party and the Missed Train

Saturday, September 29th

Saturday, Jody, Stephanie and I went to Les Puces (The Fleas) right outside of the city limits. It was nice to walk around outside and discover another something in France. These were serious flea markets, though. Everyone had his or her own stall that they opened every weekend. One part of the market was really nice and fancy. The other was more like Chinatown on a Saturday afternoon. Neither part consisted of a bunch of junk strewn across tables like the old Chelsea flea markets. Therefore, I wasn’t inclined to buy anything since the fun of digging was taken away from me. We did, however, all stop for crepes (I had nutella, banana and coconut – yum):

Jody and I took the train home to change clothes and then we headed back into Paris to go to a party at Lacy’s friend’s sister’s friend’s house. So, Lacy, I met Caroline and she is really nice. We didn’t get much of a chance to talk, but I’m making it a point to meet up with her some weekend soon. Our schedules keep missing each other.

On the way to the fete, we stopped at an ATM to get some cash and a hobo proceeded to harass Jody for about two blocks. He smelled like cheese. Finally, we out-maneuvered the hobo at a red light and were free.

We arrived at the party a little confused by our encounter on the street, but we were immediately put at ease by Caroline and all of her nice friends. Sadly, we had gotten a late start so we didn’t have much time to mingle. I sacrificed Jody to a gay couple to talk to a nice boy, but then, as always, the train! Stupid train and its stupid schedule that never jives with mine! So Jody and I made a classic French exit, which consisted of a few frantic good-byes, before jumping into a taxi to race to the train station. But there is no racing for anything in Paris. We hadn’t been in the taxi for 5 minutes before we realized that we were never ever going to make the last train. Oh well, back to Cergy en taxi we went. We should have gone back to the party. At least we laughed about it the whole way home.

Sunday Ritual

Sunday, September 30th

On Sundays, I go with Meeta to get coffee and croissants at Show Gourmand. It’s not a replacement for Sundays at Georgia’s, but it is nice to have a Sunday coffee routine again. If we are extra industrious, we manage to do laundry too.

A Trip to the Other Side of the World

Monday, October 1st

Rabbit, rabbit. Today I had to go to the opposite side of Paris to visit the doctor in order to get my residency card. The exam consisted of an eye test in French and a chest x-ray. I’m afraid I might grow a second head now because the x-ray machine seemed a little old. Anyway, I was declared not to be a “danger to society” and was then told to bring my x-ray to whichever GP I chose to that if I ever got the flu . . . . Huh? As many times as I’ve had the flu, I never once had a doctor request a chest x-ray. Anyway, step 65 of getting residency card completed.

London Business School

Wednesday, October 3rd

Today I officially found out that I was selected to go to the London Business School for a week in December as part of an exchange program. Five of us are going and it’s a great group. It should be a lot of fun (and educational, of course) and I’m looking forward being in London for the first time in a long while.

Another Hines & La Nuit Blanche

Saturday, October 6th

Tonight I saw another friendly Hines face in the form of Chesley. I am averaging seeing one Hines a month, which is fantastic. Next month will be a double-Hines Thanksgiving in Nice!
I was especially glad to be out because it was La Nuit Blanche in Paris. I really had no idea what that meant, but Chesley and I found out when we walked from dinner through the Jardin de Tuleries. The gardens were packed with people and everywhere you looked were little flower pots filled with fire. There were tubes of fire in the middle of the gardens and the little boat pond was aflame too. Nearer the Champs-Elysées, two big sculptures of afire flower pots were already dwindling a bit while the Eiffel Tower gleamed on in the background. La Nuit Blanch était vraiment magnifique!

The Financial Accounting Exam

Tuesday, October 9th

This subject does not need much recounting. Because of the previous project (see above), I did not have enough time to study for this exam. I don’t think I did badly, but I definitely could have done better. The two of us who had been shouting at the third the night before ended up being two of the last to leave the exam because we got stuck on a couple of problems. Then, that third had the nerve to tell my other group member that she and I should have studied more for the exam and that we were wrong for working so hard on the company project. Hey, guy, we would have had plenty of time to study if we hadn’t been doing your work! Ahhhh!

La Cours du Francais: Elle est Foulle

Thursday, October 11th

Today we had our first French class. I think it will also be my last. The teacher is a little crazy and there is absolutely no structure to the class. Welcome to France. I understood everything because we were reviewing grammar I covered at Harpeth Hall, but I don’t think I would have followed it at all if I had never seen it before.

I’ll admit that I was behaving badly in class. We had had a full day of classes and I was tired and I didn’t want to be there. And the teacher made us watch a video. Yuck. It was about a man and his wife who come to the French boonies with their sulky daughter to open up a restaurant. When asked to describe the daughter, I said, “Elle est malheureuse (She is unhappy).” The teacher exclaimed that that was a bit of an exaggeration so she didn’t write it on the board. I maintain that the daughter was, indeed, malheureuse at moving away from Paris. I thought the whole point of the exercise was to use our personality explaining words anyway. Je suis malheureuse about this French class so I think I am going to find a conversation partner in Paris instead.

Installments

The rest will have to wait until later, hopefully just until tomorrow. Here is a list of stories to come:

Research at Sephora (Friday, October 12th)
The Communist Party (Saturday, October 13th)
A Bad Week, A Good Dinner, Tout Est Impossible and Les Reves en Francais (et Espagnol) (Monday October 15th – Friday, October 19th)
Adrian’s Birthday (Friday, October 19th)

Oh My Gosh!

It's been 13 days since I wrote. I'm still here! Don't leave me! I will get on writing tomorrow. You have a lot to catch up on. In the meantime, here are some pictures of my new friends (see I'm making some, Mom) and me.

Meeta and Me
















Wei Kung, Chris, Oscar, Jung-Ick, Marta, Fabio, Suen, Meeta and Tyler . . . and Me

And now blogger is being a pain so I'll have to wait until tonight to post more pictures.

xx,
A

Nobody Beats the Wiz!

Since I can’t possibly devote enough time to all my stories in one night, I’m submitting in installments.

Allison Attends the Most Excruciatingly Boring Gemmology Class Ever
Wednesday, September 19th

Seriously, it was horrible. Let’s not relive it in full: ugly “gemstones,” no instruction and lots of rolling of the eyes among classmates. The class is best summed up with this little story: the gemmology woman (I don’t think she deserves to be called an instructor, at least for our group) handed my friend from New York, Jody, her 8th box of terrible stone bits to examine for goodness-knows-what and all Jody could say under her breath was a despondent “really?” Moving on.

The Cheeseburger That Was Not

After gemmology class, I stayed in Paris to go out to dinner with my friend Monika, who is Hungarian, but lives in, and I gather prefers, Switzerland. We did a good tour of Les Galeries Lafayette before walking to a pedestrian area of bars near her house in the 8ieme Arrondissement. We settled on a bar called Razowzki’s, which I remarked “sounded like a bar you’d find in Chicago.” After a glass of wine, we looked over the menu and I noted dishes called “Tribeca Salad,” “Nolita Salad” and “Brooklyn Bagel.” Interesting . . . I had landed in the only New York themed bar in the neighborhood.

As I’m sure you could all infer, since I am “cooking” for myself in a miniscule kitchenette, I’m in dire need of meat. Alors, I opted for the cheeseburger. Okay, the description went as follows:

Cheeseburger: bun, beef, salad, onions, cheddar cheese and mayonnaise

Good enough. Leçon appris earlier about the ham hamburger so I double-checked the beef situation. All good. Let’s do it. I’ll have the cheeseburger sans mayonnaise.

Now, when one says cheddar cheese, I believe you. I don’t assume that you reserve the right to put any sort of cheese you may have all willy-nilly on the hamburger. However, I can pretty much deal with any type of cheese that’s not of the blue variety. You know what I can’t deal with? Cheez Wiz! This is not cheese. This is a “cheese food product.” It clearly says so on the CAN it comes in. To simplify:

Cheez Wiz ≠ cheese

Or

≠

Write that down.

Ugh, my glorious cheeseburger dream was all double-thin-pattied, triple-bunned and cheez-wizzed out. Gross. And try as I might, I just couldn’t scrape off enough to escape the nightmare. Don’t get me wrong; I ate it. There was no way I was going to let this Wiz ruin my protein pursuit completely. The burger itself wasn’t that great, but what are you going to do? Katie and Sarah, all I could think of at the moment was Mato Mato Squiz.

I won’t even go into how Monika the vegetarian ordered a pastrami sandwich thinking it was the “brother sandwich” of minestrone soup. Um, not the first time she’s made that mistake either.

All in all, it was a funny dinner experience and it was nice to go out to a relaxed non-group dinner. I’m now going to be the American girl that asks at every restaurant “Is it real cheese or is it the Wiz?” I don’t care. I can’t face that stuff again.