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!
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| Graduation |
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