Not much to talk about, plenty to say.

Probably a boring post this week; just a lot of administrative/academic stuff, and I got a little lethargic with the rainy weather.  After Pittsburgh I told myself I'd never live in a climate like that again.  But here I am!  Oh well, I think Paris is worth it.  And it actually shouldn't be nearly as bad.  I think?

Two weeks ago I was raving about Wednesdays as my happy day.  I think that was some kind of jinx.  Last week I was forced out of my phonetics class, and this past week I decided to drop my dance class.  I love love love modern dance, but that class...let's just say it wasn't my thing.  It was frustrating to have to drop the class but I knew I'd just get more frustrated if I forced myself to go every week.  If anyone happens to know of good studios here, lemme know!
Later that night I realized that my emails from my fancy French address hadn't been forwarding to my trusty yahoo account.  I should have known not to trust my university here with my email address; they've only had a website for a year.

Uh-huh.
As the punk high school kids my friend Matteo teaches tell him: "Bienvenue en France" - "Welcome to France"!  It's endearing, really.

The email thing shouldn't have been stressful except that I was waiting for confirmation on a couple upcoming trips.  Oh yeah, I've got tickets to Germany (near Stuttgart, I'm going with my German friend Anja to her house) by way of Strasbourg (2 hour train layover = 2 hour tour of the city).  But before that, Madrid for Thanksgiving to visit my American friend Anthony who is doing an exchange there this year.  How do you say YAY in Spanish?  Arriba?

Anyway at the end of this album (click here) are some pictures of my trip to the museum Quai Branly this past Sunday with some french amigos.  Laurence - host-mom - works there!  I gather that she's in charge of works that the museum lends out.  So she travels occasionally.  The museum houses art from Africa, The Americas, Asia, and Oceania.  So, non-European art.  It's a new museum, apparently the brain-child (or at least a project of) Chirac, and when Laurence started working there the museum didn't exist - it was a gallery with a staff of 5 people.  Now, Musée Quai Branly is huge, and sits practically underneath the Eiffel Tower.  Wouldn't it be awesome if we could all work for an organization that saw its dream realized like that?
The permanent collection seemed impressive to me; I was surprised by the span of it.  They had stuff from 4 or 5 centuries BC but also lots of recent stuff (up to the later 20th century).  This museum would be (and probably is) any anthropologist's paradise. I enjoyed wandering the permanent collection but I have to say that I strongly preferred the exhibition of Iranian photographs.  Iran has a photographic history dating from the late 19th century, although virtually none of those photos exist today.  Photographic scrapbooks were apparently a popular gift for the Shah in the late 1800s/early 1900s.  Later, photographs became required for official documents and families started getting annual photos taken.  At first people were positioned on benches, surrounded by pots of geraniums, but in the mid-1900s Iranians started to imitate European portraits, using baroque-style furniture.  I guess I've just always thought of Iran as something so separate from Europe that I was surprised to read about their emulation of certain European traditions.  I bet there are some grown-ups out their rolling their eyes.  I'm sure I'm hitting all sorts of historical soft-spots here.  Forgive me; I've never been good at history!
Anyway Iranian photographers got their big break documenting political/social conflict and the medium is still primarily used as a commentary on Iranian society (although it's often subtle).   You can read a little bit more about the exhibition - and see more photos - by clicking here.
To learn more about Quai Branly in general, click here.

That album up there (here it is again) has also got some Halloween pictures.  On Saturday I took a tour of the Chinese quarter - Chinatown in Paris!  It was interesting although as usual I had a hard time paying attention to the guide (I think this is linked to my inaptitude for history) but it was nice to just walk around.  We got to go into a couple temples, which was the best part.  Besides the yummy food, of course!
About 30 minutes into the tour I noticed Zina and Catherine (Italian and English, respectively) had joined the group.  They're even more chronically late than I am so they were rushing up to us, all flustered, but as soon as we recognized each other it was all smiles.  Quite a chance happening, I think...especially since they ended up convincing me to go to this Halloween party later that night.  I went as a cowgirl; not original, but I've had things besides a costume on my mind lately.  PLUS, though it would have been a complete cop-out in Texas, my denim jumper/dress with newly-purchased black heeled-boots and long pigtails actually somewhat passed as a costume here.  I definitely got weird looks on the metro, anyway.  I think long blonde pigtails are just too much for Parisians.  I felt like everyone was looking at me, thinking, "but where are all her black clothes?"
The party felt like any "college experience" in the States -- it was a house party, insanely crowded, cigarettes being one of many fire hazards, about 120 degrees fahrenheit, an equal number of bottles of alcohol, AND the police came.  Yeehaw!
The only difference was the lack of English.  I met even more Italians (who upheld the standard of being the most easy-going and fun-loving people at the party - see pictures) and my very first real-live Swedish friend (who spoke english with a prominent American accent thanks to many episodes of Sex and the City.  Most people you encounter here speak British English so it was a surprise for me).

Well, I've somehow managed to drag this out; thanks for reading!

A la prochaine,
Alina :)