Tag: dining out

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Closing out the March theatre marathon

Going to start things off with some more (very quick, I promise) musings on dissertation-writing today before moving on to other theatre-related things. Don’t worry though. This time I’m going to actually be positive(ish) about things…for once.

 

I had a meeting with my thesis director about a week ago, the first since our last extensive one-on-one in early July before the summer holidays officially kicked off. Was I freaking out that there would be a lot of skeptical, questioning remarks about what I’d hacked out? Yes. Did I end up having to worry about that? No…as these things usually go, apparently (convenient how the mind tends to forget this when one is ‘in the thick of it’…).

 

 

Other than planning out my next steps (which I am kind of excited about because they involve diving back into theory), one thing that was brought up was all the things I had apparently ‘done’ or illuminated in my drafts, things that, in part challenged some other established critiques of audience/spectacle relationships (and I won’t get into it here because it is a bit complicated, and this is not the space for that sort of thing…also I’m on a time crunch). These comments both come as a rather pleasant little surprise, as well as inspire some fear. Because, of course, I had no conscious intention of challenging anything when I was writing my stuff, but as those who write (dissertations or not) probably know, sometimes you just get in the zone and things come out and you don’t really stop to think about the implications of it all.

 

What I’m saying is, I think I might have to get into some critical analysis of my own work after this is all done, so I don’t look like a fish with its mouth gaping open during my dissertation defense a year (holy shit) from now. Writing is a funny thing sometimes.

 

 

At the end of the session, she also threw out, on a whim, a suggestion that I think I’m going to officially adopt as my title :

 

Contemporary French Theatre: Spatial Effects

 

I’m not one who easily comes up with short, not terribly wordy titles (or titles in general) for my writing projects anyway, so having this now is definitely something I don’t mind adding to my little list of ‘dissertation wins’. Also, I like puns.

 

Anyway, moving on to what else I’ve been up to…

 

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So beautiful…(Instagram @effie143)

I tried an egg-centric (hehe) dish a week ago at brunch with a friend at Salatim, an Isreali restaurant in the 2nd arrondissement. The set brunch menu is priced at 21eur (though some add-ons, such as challah bread, will bump the price up a tiny bit…though…you kind of need bread for this meal so…yeah), and includes

  • a hot drink (coffee/tea)
  • juice (orange or house lemonade)
  • a generous serving of various salads and mezze topped with a portion of the dish of the day (that day the specials were something with salmon and confit lamb. We went with the lamb…because of course)
  • Shakshouka to share (yep)
  • A selection of desserts to share (including a very yummy chocolate babka)

 

When the waiter was explaining the brunch menu, the issue of me hating eggs came up, but I decided–because I guess I was feeling adventurous that day or something–to say to hell with it and said to put two eggs in the pan because hey, who knows?

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We can now add this to the list of egg-things I’ve tried (Instagram @effie143)

In the end, I am glad we made that choice because the sauce the shakshouka was served in was really incredible (adding some harissa on it wasn’t such a bad choice either hehe). I did end up mixing in some of the egg white in with the sauce as I scooped it up with the (not included but really should be) challah bread, but I ended up leaving the yolk to the side. Mixing the egg whites in with the sauce was pretty alright. There was definitely a limit to how far I could tilt the egg/sauce ratio to the former but, at least I tried.

 

This does not, however, change my opinion on other egg-related breakfast dishes, so don’t even think of suggesting I try an omelette or poached egg or a breakfast burrito anytime soon.

 

 

Speaking of other food-related things, the day before said brunch I also met up with a friend to check out what I think is going to be one of my new favorite semi-annual events: the Salon des vins des vignerons indépendants (The Independent winemakers expo).

 

 

This event takes place two times a year, once in the fall (around November, I believe), and once in early spring. While the fall expo is held at the much larger venue at Porte de Versailles, in the southern edge of the city, this one took place at the slightly smaller–but no less lively, according to my friend who has attended several of these–Porte de Champerret. Basically, how it works is after you buy your entry ticket (normally 6eur, but I managed to snag a free pass), you check in, receive your complementary wine glass, and then proceed to roam up and down the aisles stopping at any tables that seem interesting. Rather than organize the wines by region–that is, one section for Bordeaux, one for the Loire Valley, one for Provence, etc–all the regions are kind of mixed together, allowing for, at least I think, some more spontaneous exploring or venturing out to try something new. Thankfully, for those on the hunt for a particular region, the signage above each table was color-coded, something I at least found rather helpful as the afternoon went on and I became increasingly determined to get my hands on some nice Rhône reds.

 

I ended up with four bottles in my ‘haul’ (honestly, my little wine cabinet thing could not fit any more than that), including an interesting white wine from the Jura region I would probably have never tried otherwise. I’ll be excited to break that one out eventually (another reason I didn’t get more wines, I don’t actually drink that much wine at home, living alone and whatnot).

 

 

And finally, before the ‘fun’ theatre commentary starts, I’m going to toot my own horn for a second and mention that about two weeks ago, I popped back over to Reid Hall to be part of a panel of former MA students, now PhDs, on how to carry out a research project, as well as speak about our own work to the current MA students. Having a rather untraditional–by comparison, at least, considering that the other two panelists were PhD candidates in history–project and trajectory did get my nerves going a bit at the beginning, but I think my choice to sort of dispense with the fact that, given the ephemerality of my corpus, I had no archives/powerpoint to show right away and move on to general advice ended up paying off. There was a nice little discussion afterwards as well, and I think that, having been in the position those students are in now six(!) years ago, hopefully we were all able to give them at least some helpful direction as they navigate the nonsense of a giant research project for the first time.

 

 

One thing that really irked me though, there was a gentleman in the audience who, the minute I went up to the podium, got up and started rifling through his bags rather loudly, as well as walking back and forth between the refreshments table and his seat. A side note: I was the second of the three presenters. He didn’t do this for any of the other two. I know it shouldn’t have, but it definitely took me aback for a minute, especially considering that I was doing this presentation after finishing a day of teaching. Honestly, if there is one thing I absolutely cannot stand, it’s when I have the floor and people are disruptive or chatty or in general, taking away my time. There was plenty of time between myself and the person who spoke before me to get up, stretch a bit, and then sit back down. Did it have something to do with the fact that I was the only woman speaking? Who knows. I’m leaning towards no, and just chalking this up to general rudeness, but holy hell my dude.

 

 

Common courtesy is a thing. Anyway…

 

 

Theatre

 

 

Qui a tué mon père, written by Édouard Louis, dir. Stanislas Nordey, La Colline, March 24. 

 

I’ll get this out of the way now: the answer to the question posed in the title (‘Who killed my father’, in English) is several people, or ‘the system’ in general. But this didn’t get fully addressed until towards the end of the production. The rest of the time was devoted to the solo actor–an avatar of sorts for Louis, considering the very autobiographical nature of this piece–detailing the history of his relationship with his father, a working-class man from the (formerly industrialized, recently deindustrialized) north of France, whose previous conservative and far-right leanings clashed with his son’s own politics as well as his person (Louis, like the solo character in the show, is openly gay). The end of the piece suggests that the father, in his older age, and now out of work due to a back injury, has started to come back around to the left, not only in terms of social issues, but also as a worker in the sense that, until recently, the left had been the side pictured as fighting for workers’ rights. (Xenophobia, homophobia, racism, discrimination, etc. are just some of the divisions the far-right has stoked in order to falsely paint itself as the party for the working man…unfortunately with some success).

 

 

As mentioned before, this show–which runs just shy of two hours–is performed by a solo actor, though he is not necessarily alone on stage. When the curtain rises, for instance, it sees him seated at a table facing what one assumes to be his father. The figure seated across from him, however, is not another actor, but a very realistic model (not gonna lie, it took me a while to realize that, partially because I was seated a bit further back in the room). This model has his downstage arm propped up on the table, the hand cradling his face so that it is hidden from view, and presumably, to suggest a lack of ‘connected gaze’. This image of visual disconnect (perhaps reflective of the metaphorical disconnect between father and son) carries on through the production as, during the blackouts that punctuate moments of the long monologue, other models of the same figure appear on stage, all of home facing either upstage, or purposefully away from where the actor is standing.

 

It’s only towards the end of the piece that the actor actually begins interacting with the models on the stage. At this point, there is a light snowfall bathing the space–or at least the square playing space on the middle of the stage–in white. One by one, the actor picks up the models–by this point, he has recounted the story behind his father’s work-related injury, as well as the bureaucratic difficulties involved with worker’s comp and getting back into/finding work at all–and gently placing them off the playing space. Once said center square is free of all objects, he begins his last, very pointed and very specific series of accusations.

 

Starting with the presidency of Jacques Chirac and concluding with Macron, the actor one by one names first, the sitting president, and then his Minister of Health and/or of Work. He doesn’t just recite the names either, but rather tilts his head up and cries the name into the sky, into the falling snow, slowly, deliberately, slightly pausing just before his declamation to make sure the focus shifts onto the names themselves before he continues on to recount the misdeeds of the persons behind said names. In general, the discours concerns the gradual eroding of the French social net, especially as far as the working class is concerned. The goal, as the text itself states, in presenting these grievances in such a way is to immortalize, via theatre, the names of the persons responsible for the increasingly-precarious living situations of the working class in the same way that theatre has–again, the comparison is given in the text–immortalized Richard III. The text closes by evoking the fact that the political means something very different for those in a position like the narrator’s (and by extension Louis’s) father, who are more quickly and more directly impacted by even five-euro budget increases or decreases than those of us (and this definitely includes most everyone sitting in the theatre that afternoon, including myself) for whom such fluctuations do not cause as much of a disruption.

 

And at the end, the son recounts a final conversation he had with his father, one in which the father concluded by saying it was about time for another revolution, for something to happen. Given the ongoing Gilets Jaunes demonstrations (a movement that still, in my opinion, needs to contend with the far-right presence, however small or not, in its ranks, despite the left’s attempts to retake control of the narrative), the timing of this was rather perfect.

 

Those who know me, though, will probably not be surprised at the fact that, while I agreed with much of what was being said during that final discours, I remained skeptical as to its efficacy in theatrical form (especially how very close to didactic it became, what with the reminder to audience members of France’s recent past). This is, however, based on an assumption that said discours would at least inspire reflection, if nothing else, on the part of the audience members, but how far can reflection go if it cannot then be translated into action?

 

I mean, in the end, the show is being performed in a venu located in a neighborhood that was historically very working-class but has recently undergone several years of change and the beginnings of a gentrification that is seeing the former working-class residents at risk of being priced out. It’s also a National Theatre. Normal ticket prices are around 30eur. For my American readers, this might not seem like a lot, given the average theatre ticket prices in many major cities, but here, that is up there. (Thankfully, I am still under 30, and even if I wasn’t, the membership card I have for this season greatly reduces the price per ticket).

 

Speaking of more political theatre…

 

Gymnase Platon: Lakhès, dir. Grégoire Ingold, MC93, March 28

 

So, here’s a question: if someone proposed to you to go attend a performance the first part of which consisted of a staging of one of Plato’s dialogues, would you go? A conversation on the themes addressed in the dialogue would of course follow, this evening in the presence of a professor of Classical Philosophy. As to the dialogue, other than being performed in French, as opposed to recited in Ancient Greek (thank god), there would be little done in terms of taking it from its historical moment to ours, trusting at least that the themes themselves would carry over just fine.

 

The idea of this production (or series of productions. There were actually three stagings of three different dialogues proposed, the first of which I missed, the second being this one, and the third being Plato’s dialogue on justice which I supposed to attend this past Saturday but didn’t because of…well…this piece) was to recreate the environment of the ancient Agora, a space of interaction, of sharing ideas, of thinking and speaking liberally. The problem with this idea, before we get into anything else, is that it is almost doomed to fall short from the start. For one thing, the fact that this production is staged–that is, that there is a text that is meant to be followed–means that the room for improvisation, for tangents, for interruption and other twists and turns of spontaneous discours is gone. There is, rather, a single group in this case–the actors–who retains vocal and ‘narrative’ dominance. Though at one point early on in the dialogue the audience is asked to vote on  which of the two sides they agree with (and this is before Socrates comes in and complicates things), other than that, our participation, our presence was regulated to that of what is ‘expected’ of a contemporary theatre audience.

 

Quiet, attentive, responding but silently until the signal is given that we may applaud.

 

Interestingly, the night I went there was also a group of high school students in attendance, one of whom was dealing with a rather nasty cough (yay changing of the seasons). At one point, his teacher asked him to step out so that his coughing wouldn’t be so distracting, but I honestly almost wished he hadn’t done that because this was supposed to be an Agora after all, right.

 

 

Also, again, a reminder, in Ancient Greece there was no rule about not talking at the theatre. People only shut up if they thought what was being performed was worth listening and paying attention to. So…yeah.

 

 

Second problem: this was something the philosophy professor in attendance pointed out, but there is the question of why stage Plato now while at the same time not try and shift the context of the dialogue, in some way, from his historical moment to ours. The question at the center of this one was that of the nature of ‘virtue’, but one thing that was not addressed in the written program (nor in the staging prior to the professor’s commentary) was the fact that the metrics by which this is measured by are incredibly different now from what they were in Plato’s day. Plato, in other words, would very likely not recognize virtue as we see it, least of which because, unlike in his day, we don’t necessarily measure worth by military victories/prowess anymore.

 

 

And quite frankly, I would have been very happy to just have a conversation/seminar session with that professor. He was an older gentleman, but he had a very pleasant voice and a very engaging manner, and he tried his best to make sure we were following his train of thought. In fact, one of the young high schoolers was particularly engaged with what this man was saying, and was very eager to pose him questions (unfortunately, he only had time to ask one of his questions before we all had to clear the space, but I saw him walk over to the professor as everyone was beginning to file out, no doubt ready to ask him the second question he had in mind right when the announcement that we had to clear out was made).

 

But, yeah, I’m not sure how productive as a work of theatre this was. The tri-frontal seating arrangement (later turned quadri-frontal after the actors ceded the right to speak to the professor) could, I imagine, have given an air of an environment set for exchange of ideas but…the stage/spectator power structures of who can and cannot speak and when were still there. Anyway, in brief, I wasn’t really keen on seeing this happen again on Saturday, hence why I decided to skip out on the next performance.

 

Evel Knievel contre Macbeth, dir. Rodrigo Garcia, Nanterre, March 29

 

Yeah, I honestly have no idea how to even begin with this.

 

Actually, no, here’s how:  in Swiss Army Man, before the screen cuts to black, a character, taking in the bizarre nonsense of everything that has just happened in front of her, takes a minute and then clearly lets forth the final line of the film

 

“What the fuck?”

 

 

Some key words for this piece

 

  • Orson Welles
  • Evel Knievel
  • Macbeth
  • Brazil
  • Tokyo
  • Japanese monster

 

Yep. I’m going to just…let this one marinate somewhere else for right now.

 

I will say though that the sound design was cool

 

 

Dying Together, dir. Lotte Van Den Berg, Nanterre, March 31

 

Participatory theatre. Creating community around death.

 

The one thing I will say about this is that they asked for audience members’ consent each and every time a new scenario or a new person to represent was proposed to them. That’s excellent. More people should do that.

 

Moving on though, the idea with this piece was, in brief, to approach the notion of death as a communal, constellation-creating (yes, constellations, as in stars, as in things that are connected not physically but by our perception of links or patterns in the spaces between them) phenomena rather than a solo one. To do this, three scenarios were proposed (the 2015 Germanwings crash, the 2013 sinking of a migrant caravan boat near Lampedusa and the 2015 attacks in Paris, specifically at the Bataclan) during which members of the audience were asked to represent, via their physical, not vocal, presence, various persons connected with said events. Said persons could have been victims, perpetrators of the attacks, relatives of victims/attackers, or people who may have been peripherally if not directly involved in the event itself. If, during each scenario, we agreed to represent the person (note: none of these people were named; for those whose identities were more or less known, all we were given was very basic information including sex, age, and perhaps an occupation or a tidbit of info on the person’s background), we were led to a part of the space and told to stand in a certain way and look in a particular direction. This would be our starting position, and from there, when the constellation would start shifting, we could move around a bit to explore the space, our connection to it/the person we were representing, and our inter-personal connections to each other.

 

Movements stayed relatively slow and consisted mostly of walking or variations of sitting/laying down and standing up. This one is still a bit fresh in my mind since I just came from seeing it, but it did make me think of some general thoughts I have about this kind of improvisational (ish) experimental theatre, especially as it relates to the question of audience integration. It is no secret that I myself love physical theatre. Viewpoints (of which this experience definitely reminded me, especially as we all started moving about the space) changed my life and appreciation for theatre when I was in college, but one thing I’ve found is that, in terms of actually doing it, the best results are produced in intimate, more private spaces, amongst a small group of people who have spent several weeks (or better, months) working together in order to be fully comfortable with the level of physical vulnerability and liberty in experimentation that is often asked of performers in these situations. In short, in my experience, integrating an audience, or transposing these experiences into a much larger–and much more temporary group–is always a risk, and never quite seems to go anywhere. I personally did not feel any connection to any of the persons I was asked to represent. What I did do, however, was spend the majority of my time watching how other people navigated around each other. Dynamic spatial relationships, yo.

 

 

Also it should probably not come as a surprise to anyone but when it came time to ask for representatives for the attacks at the Bataclan, it took a couple tries before they found the first person who consented to represent one of the three shooters. This production was first staged in Rotterdam, I believe with the same three scenarios, but there is something about bringing that particular one back to Paris (and only 3.5 years after the attacks) that made the initial refusals or hesitations of participating not terribly surprising.

 

Anyway, my skepticism towards the efficacy of participation/’immersion’ theatre still holds for now.

 

 

And now, I am going to take a lozenge and head to sleep. Stupid seasonal (and time) changes throwing off my immune system…

 

Until next time!

 

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My Saturday night…cocktails with a friend at La Loutre (Loutre = otter; the bar has otters printed on their wallpaper and it’s adorable).
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A Day in Rouen

 

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It should be a truth universally acknowledged that any teacher with a sizable pile of papers to grade (and a dissertation to continue writing) must be in want of a vacation.

 

Conveniently, I just so happen to be in the middle of the second of my two week work holiday (because, yes, a two week winter/ski break between the Christmas holidays and spring beak is a thing…a very wonderful thing), so even if I hadn’t ended up going anywhere, I would have at least gotten in a bit more rest than usual. Fortunately, though, trains exist, and Paris just so happens to be incredibly well-connected.

 

 

I had been pondering over the idea to take a day trip somewhere for a while, even before the holidays started, and to be frank, the unseasonably (and incredibly concerning) warm weather we had leading up and into last week only made that urge stronger. Faced with a desire to get the hell out of the city for a bit, but with absolutely no idea as to where I wanted to go, I sought out the advice of friends, one of whom recommended Rouen, a city about 1.5 hours outside of Paris. With tickets being only 20eur for a roundtrip, the choice to go was pretty much made for me. Even better: I managed to convince another friend to venture out with me.

 

 

Rouen is the capital of the Normandy region, and was also one of the most thriving and prosperous cities during the Middle Ages (this may explain why there are so. Many. Cathedrals…or not. I don’t know; I’m not a historian). It was also the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, and yes, before you ask, the city does lean into that a bit. She may have been the “Virgin of Orléans”, but she died in Rouen, goddamnit.

 

 

And no, before anyone asks, we did not visit any Joan of Arc-related sites or attractions.

 

 

Other than Joan, Rouen can also lay claim as a birthplace or residency of several other notable figures: dramatist/tragedian Pierre Corneille (whose Médée is still one of the few neoclassical French adaptations of a Greek tragedy that I actually like), novelist Gustave Flaubert (Rouen also plays a pivotal role in Madame Bovary), and artist Marcel Duchamp.  Monet also spent a considerable amount of time in the city, painting, among other things, a well-known series of the Rouen Cathedral. The city’s Musée des Beaux-Arts is also quite well regarded (and conveniently free for anyone who wishes to visit the permanent collections).

 

 

There are several trains leaving from Saint Lazare that head out in that direction daily, some with a final stop in Rouen (the rest usually will continue on to Le Havre). Regardless, the TGV ride is swift and calm, and before you know it, you will have arrived at Rouen’s central train station.

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Now, despite the fact that it was once a former commercial hub, Rouen today is noticeably more calm and quiet (and more sparsely populated) than Paris. It is also much smaller than Paris, the historical center in particular, meaning that it is relatively easy to walk where one wants to go and see pretty much all the sites in one day (though I’m sure there is more to be explored…perhaps on another visit!). The historical center is absolutely breathtaking, not just in the incredibly well-preserved medieval architecture, but in the variety of colors on the building façades (think pinks, mint green, blue, basically almost any deviation from the usual ‘white walls/brown timber’ combo, though there were plenty of those as well). I, however, being a bit of a dummy, did not take photos of very many of said buildings, so…yeah. Just imagine it yourself.

 

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Arguably, one of Rouen’s biggest draws is its cathedral, made famous both by Monet’s paintings as well as the fact that it suffered considerable damage following an Allied bombardment in WWII (in one of their operations leading up to the D-Day landings). Unfortunately, a few of the stained-glass windows were damaged beyond repair, but the loss of a couple of windows is more than made up for by the intricate details on the front of the building.

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Inside the cathedral there is a self-guided (though, given that it is still actively used as a church, religiously-bent) tour on the building’s history, including some panels detailing the various periods during which the 800+ year old building had to undergo some kind of maintenance. There are also a number of tombs inside, whose inscriptions gave my friend and I an opportunity to test our skills in Latin (spoiler: we were only middlingly successful). Overall, though, I’d say that was a good way to spend the morning.

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On our way to lunch, we also popped over to admire the large clock that almost every blog/travel guide post I looked up about Rouen prior to my visit had a photo of. It was very impressive.

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I’ll get to what we ate in the end, but before I do, some shots of what ended up being our primary afternoon activity: a visit to the Musée des Beaux-Arts (did I mention it was free??).

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I don’t think there were any temporary exhibits on, or if there were, they weren’t ticketing them because we were able to get in to see everything (or pretty much everything…we may have inadvertently skipped one or two rooms). The museum is not particularly large, so seeing everything isn’t exactly a Louvre-sized feat. What I was most excited for, however, was the small impressionist collection. As far as art movements go, impressionism still ranks up there as one of my favorites, mostly because of how much the landscapes/environments/colors it favors contrast with my own life. If cubism–as much as I also like and admire it–inspires almost overwhelming feelings of dread knowing that WWI was just around the corner (and having a feeling that maybe the art was anticipating the violence a bit as well), impressionism brings calm, openness, a feeling of being able to breathe again. I can still recall the last time I was in Giverny close to six (!) years ago and I went to hike a bit on the hills behind the village, away from the tour groups. It was a clear day, and from where I stood, I could see all the way out to where the Seine, much wider and more peaceful than in Paris, stretched along a green valley. Insects buzzed. There was a breeze. If I perked up my ears a bit, I could hear the soft grunts of the horses roaming around in a nearby pasture. It’s easy, from a perch like that, to understand why someone would want to build a house and create art here.

 

 

Anyway, back to the museum. The collection may not be as impressive, say, as the one in the Orsay, but the advantage here, again, is that there are fewer people to deal with.

 

 

 

As we did not have a ton of time ahead of us after leaving the museum, the remainder of our little trip was spent walking along the river, enjoying the sunshine (even though, again, that should absolutely not have been a thing in February).

 

 

For those who want to know where (and what) we ate:

 

  • First stop was coffee at Citizen Coffee. Yes, I did look up coffee shops before going because that is a thing I do now (really though it’s because I do not like to take chances that early in the morning when I’m not even properly awake). They use Café Lomi beans there, so the quality is pretty much guaranteed. I, for instance, can confidently say that I was very happy with my flat white.

 

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  • Lunch (our only full meal in the city) was at L’Espiguette, a recommendation from the friend who suggested I visit Rouen in the first place. A lunch formule of a first and main course runs at around 14eur. I opted to have a glass of wine with my meal, which brought my total to 19eur. For a starter, I opted for leeks vinaigrette (my friend got a slice of rabbit terrine), and then a steak (with a copious serving of fries) for my main. The fact that I still felt super full when I finally arrived back home (even after all the walking we did post-lunch) is a testament to what a good (and delicious) value this place was.

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And thus ends the musings on the mini-vacation to Rouen.

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Yay!

Other than that, my vacation has pretty much consisted of me writing (and reading…yes, because the theoretical research never ends) and trying to push the looming thoughts of lesson planning and grading out of my mind (they’re creeping back in now, unfortunately). Thankfully, this last trimestre goes by insanely quickly, what with another two weeks off in April and May being…a weird month (a lot of random national holidays). It still never ceases to amaze me how quickly this year has been going by, especially considering all the ups and downs (and dear god were there some mental downs) that accompanied my first period of furious, financially-motivated writing.

 

These next couple of days are going to be slightly emotionally tricky, to be honest. In sum, a very good friend is moving away early next week. I’m not particularly good at goodbyes, especially when it concerns people I have become rather close to (and when the leaving also implies the further shrinking of my rather small social circle). This, of course, is one of the things that comes with being an expat, getting accustomed to the flux of people coming and going (and hell, I was one of those people coming and going once). I’m trying to make more of an effort of going to more things other than plays on my own though, if nothing else than to just be around people. Feed off their energy a bit, try to find other communities I might want to try and be a part of (the nice thing about being an expat, especially in a country I have no familial ties to: I can constantly readjust and reinvent myself as I see fit).

 

Oh, and before I go, one last bit of nonsense:

 

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This is terrifying.
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Traveling…again (oh, and happy birthday to me)

I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately, how quickly it seems to have been passing these last few weeks, and consequently how very little time is left between me and a very important deadline in February.

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This rainy morning in Lyon speaks to me…(instagram @effie143)

Yes, it’s the dissertation thing again. I’ve managed to write quite a bit, but always with the feeling that I should be doing more. On the other hand, I have started to move away from the feeling that I need to hit a certain page number before I can turn in this chapter draft (mostly because I feel like since I haven’t really been consistently communicating with my advisor since the summer, I should have a good chunk of something to show for it. Is 25 pages enough for that?). Teaching hasn’t really put in as much of a dent on my work as much as getting around my own frustrations has. It’s still so much easier for me to write a post for this blog—arguably a far more personal form of writing—than it is to hack out this chapter draft. Maybe because I’m not exactly gushing over the topic of focus in it. Here’s hoping when I get to writing on my own theoretical ideas, the words will come out faster.

Time also figured pretty prominently in the show I saw on November 7th, Nachlass, pièces sans personnes at the MC93, though I hesitate over whether or not it is even theatrical at all, rather than firmly anchored in performance art. The idea of this is that visitors are gathered into one of the venues smaller exhibition spaces which has been fitted out with a series of 8 rooms, each one dedicated to one (or in one case 2) individuals. For the most part, said individuals are all dead (and I leave the caveat in there because there were a couple who never explicitly mentioned that the existence of their presence in this exhibition space meant that they were no longer alive). Rather than let visitors enter and exit the rooms as they wished, a timer above each doorway indicated the time remaining for the current occupants to finish their visit, before the door would open, the previous visitors would file out, and new ones filed in. There was no particular order to follow. Other than one of the rooms that absolutely needed six people in it, if possible, thus causing the staff curating the event to herd people in its direction, so that everyone could experience the room as it was meant to be, visitors were free to wander as they wished. As I had set myself a deadline at which I had to leave in order to be able to make it to the high school in time for the start of theatre club (I attended on a Wednesday afternoon), I just made my decision based on which door had the shortest wait time listed over it after getting out of the previous room. I only ended up waiting longer than a minute (wait time could vary between 30 seconds and just over 5 minutes) a couple times, and at those moments, I would sit on one of the crates lining the walls next to the doors, looking up at the ceiling where a world map was projected, little pings of light marking another death somewhere in the world.

Yeah, not exactly the most sunshiny of performances.

What the pieces really rest on, though, is absence. Not total absence, at least not quite. Once the door begins to close on each of the rooms—decorated in a certain, incredibly meticulous way so as to reflect an aspect of the life of the deceased—, a recording would play in which the deceased would introduce themselves, and then address their audience directly as they began to talk about not just their lives, but their musings on death as well. Sometimes, we were invited to poke around a bit, other times to help ourselves to water or, in the case of one of the subjects who happened to be Turkish, loukoumia. But there’s an uneasy feeling that creeps inside you when you realize that not only does the person to whom that voice that is talking to you now originally belong is dead, they are aware of the fact that their existence would continue on for a while in this manner, in this ‘present-but-not-quite’ manner. It’s almost like a proto A.I., a thing that tries to sustain existence beyond the human.

 
But it can’t ever really reach a human presence because of this chasm that exists between us and it in terms of precisely this idea of interaction. It can influence us, make us perform certain actions by tapping into a desire to know more or to cultural notions of hospitality, but we cannot do the same with it. The recording still plays even when no one is in the room. Our physical presence is required for the story to become that, otherwise it’s just a series of vibrations in a contained space.
Maybe this “play with no actors” is more about drawing attention to the material presence of our—as in the audience’s—physical existence than it is about musings on death. Who knows?
Thankfully, though, my past two weekends have been decidedly more upbeat.

 

First up was a quick trip to Grenoble to visit a friend of mine who I met while we were both living at CitéU. She and I had been talking for a while about me coming down to visit, and thankfully our dates finally coordinated to make it happen.

 

 

And other than a bit of rain during the start of our little day trip to Lyon on the Saturday of my visit, the weather was basically perfect.

 

I opted to take the Ouibus down instead of a train, mostly due to the fact that the bus was significantly cheaper. Clocking in at 8.5hrs though—including mandatory stops—it was significantly longer as well, but thankfully the WiFi actually worked pretty decently, the seats were comfortable, and I had no one in the seat next to me (yay stretching out my legs).

 

 

I arrived late on a Friday night, and as Grenoble is a pretty small city, we opted to dedicate Saturday to exploring Lyon, another city I had not been to. Ticking off two new cities in one trip? I’d say that’s pretty good.

 
As usual, the visit mostly consisted of walking, with an incredibly filling lunch thrown in for good measure. I’m a bit suspicious that the slight cold I came home with originated at some point on this walk, what with the combination of light rain in the morning, and general windiness in the afternoon (though, thank goodness for sun). We had originally planned on visiting a museum, but as walking is free and the city rather large, we opted to stay outside and let our feet guide us. And good thing too because it was peak fall outside, and I was absolutely here for it.

 

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Speaking of lunch, this meal marked the first of two weekends full of meals that were delicious, but otherwise all but void of any kind of veg. Don’t get me wrong; I like a good sausage or stew as much as anyone. But, not going to lie, I am very much looking forward to chomping down on a whole head of broccoli once I get back to Paris [side note: I’m writing this while sitting on a rather turbulent flight back to Paris from Budapest].
Lunch in Lyon was at a restaurant in the older part of the city, where they offered a set lunch menu for around 15eur. I started off with a rather sizable bowl of French onion soup (because something was needed to counteract the morning chill).
Then I moved on to a main course of boudin noir (blood sausage) with roast potato and apple. Now, I love a good boudin noir—it’s probably up there among my favorite sausages—, but to be quite frank, I do think there’s a limit as to how much of a good thing you can have, particularly when it comes to portion size.
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Honestly, I could have done fine with just one of the sausages, about half the potatoes and the apple, especially considering the large soup I had just finished eating. Food waste is such a problem, that it’s almost unnerving to see this quantity of food served for one person as part of a multi-course menu in a country where getting a to-go bag isn’t really part of the culture. Hell, even if I had just had the dish on its own, I probably still would have only been able to down half of what was on the plate. Anyway, all that aside, the dish was pretty good (though, last little nit to pick, a salad or something green would have been nice).

 

 

For dessert I decided to keep it local with a slice of pink praline tart.

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I’ve seen many pralined items on offer in bakeries in Paris, but I never knew that this thing originated in Lyon. Lyon, however, would like to make sure you never forget its history with all things “praliné-d”, as the amount of pink emanating from bakeries is enough to last a lifetime.

 

As to the tart, it was actually quite good. The filling is essentially a kind of almond paste, which I’m quite fond of, and it wasn’t as overly sweet as the bright pink would suggest.

 

 

Given how full we were, even after walking off the meal with a trek around pretty much all of Lyon, we had no intention of eating anything for the rest of the day. Well, we did end up grabbing some veggie tartines at a bar back in Grenoble that evening, but that was more to have something to nibble on than to fill a pressing need for sustenance.

 

 

And in spite of all the walking we had done, we opted to go out dancing in Grenoble when we got back. Well, attempted to go dancing would be more accurate. After we bar-hopped a bit, we finally reached the pub where the dancing was, only to find it absolutely packed-in-like-sardines full of people. So, less dancing, more bobbing around in a 2m radius. The cheesy French music the DJ kept playing did keep things incredibly entertaining though.

 

 

The next morning, the sun was out in all its glory, meaning a short hike was in order. Grenoble sits in a basin surrounded by the alps, so the views from high up on the Bastille fortress were pretty remarkable (a highlight: getting a glimpse of Mont Blanc in the distance).

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Lunch was sausage again (though this time a local one called a diot), and this time there was a hint of veg too!

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The square the restaurant was located in

And then it was back on a bus for me for another longish ride back to Paris.

 

 

The week was mostly quiet, save for some parent-teacher conference meetings (oh it is odd being on the other side of these things…). More accurately, the week was pretty much a countdown to Thursday night, when I was scheduled to head off again for another weekend adventure, this time to Budapest.

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A couple months ago when I was thinking about what I would like to do for my birthday—which was this past Friday, November 16—, I started to toy with the idea of taking a solo weekend somewhere. This was partly inspired by the fact that I didn’t really feel like doing a deep clean of my apartment (or amassing any more chip bags…), but also by where my mental state was at the time, which in brief, was not exactly in the best place. In the name of practicing self-care, I decided, almost on a whim, to book a solo weekend to Budapest, a city I had always wanted to visit. Flight prices were reasonable, and quite frankly, I didn’t want to bother waiting for anyone else to confirm whether or not they were available to take the plunge and go.
And so I went on my first solo trip.
I have travelled alone to places before, but never to a place I had never been, and never remaining solo for this long. To be honest, I felt a bit nervous that I’d start to feel isolated, but it turns out a weekend was just enough time to get back in touch with myself without wishing for other people’s company.

 

 

Besides, I was really only venturing solo for one of the days I was there.

 
Originally, I was due to arrive at around 23h on Thursday night, but due to some flight delays, did not get in until 02h30 on Friday. This means I turned 29 in the sky, while grading papers. Being a teacher is incredibly exciting.
Arriving so late also meant I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have liked in order to be nice and refreshed for the food tour I booked as a birthday gift to myself, but eating things shook me out of any residual tiredness rather quickly. My group consisted of me, an older British couple, and our guide, a middle-aged Hungarian named George who peppered his talk with comments about how, as we all know, none of this meat and cheese and potatoes and bread (and lard…so much lard) is particularly good for the health, but how wonderful that fresh veg is so widely available to us now. I guess these are things that of course come up amongst the middle-age crowd (I suppose this counts as relating to one another), but I did find it hilarious that we were all in a general consensus about the importance of eating a balanced diet, and then our lunch happened.
Here’s what we ate (and drank) :

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Langos (a fried dough topped with sour cream, cheese, and garlic), and in the back, unicum, a bitter (slightly medicinal-tasting) Hungarian liqueur
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Various cured meats (that dark one is horse!)
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Pickles!
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Smoked wood chocolate on the left (tasted like a campfire, in the best way), bergamot and cinnamon on the right
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Goulash
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Sausages (traditional paprika, then blood sausage, and finally liver sausage), and roast duck, and schnitzel, and a hidden pork cordon bleu for lunch (thankfully, this was shared amongst 4 people)
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Cheese selection to accompany the wine-tasting
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Cakes! (The one in front is a walnut cake, behind it is a dobos torta). All phots on instagram @effie143

The older woman of the couple on the tour with me even offered to take my photo when we were sat down for cake, so now I’ve got at least a bit of proof that I did, indeed, have a birthday cake of sorts on my birthday.

 

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Our tour concluded with a bit of wine tasting, where I discovered a dessert wine that I actually quite liked.

 

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FYI, it’s the one on the right (a Tokai)

After the tour concluded, we all headed our separate ways, with me deciding to cross the Danube over to the Buda side of Budapest and taking a little hike up to the castle. Given how early the sun sets out there (like 16h…moving eastward definitely makes a difference), most of my time up there was spent attempting to take good nighttime photos on my phone, and honestly, I think I did pretty ok!

 

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Then it was off to a quick trip to the Christmas market for some hot wine and some browsing before heading back to the hostel for dinner.

 
Yes, one of the perks of staying here was the free communal “dinners” in the evening. That word is in quotes for a reason that will become clear in a bit.

 
But, Friday night at least was lentil stew night, and even though I was still pretty full from earlier in the day, I’m glad I at least got some sustenance in me before heading out that evening to celebrate turning 29 in a way that did not involve grading papers on an airplane.

 
Along with two other people from the hostel (who were totally down to go out on our own rather than to the hostel-organized boat party that cost like 20eur (yeah…no), my night was spent at Szimpla, probably the most well-known of Budapest’s ruin bars. This place is like no other bar I have ever been to, mostly due to how absolutely massive it is. Like, I don’t even think we made it into all the different rooms. I will say that I had a pretty legit IPA while there, with a very…special name.

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Liquid Cocaine. Yep.

The next day—my last full day—I woke up at 10h, and started my morning at Massolit, a café I am convinced was made for me (I mean books + cozy plush chairs + good coffee = happy Effie. The poppyseed strudel helped too).

 

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Afterwards, I made my way over to the Terror House, a museum dedicated to exhibits documenting the fascist and communist regimes in Hungary. As most of the material was in Hungarian, I opted to rent an audio guide for my visit, which—though it was a bit long-winded at times—did give an incredibly thorough overview of everything on display and the history behind it. This was the only museum I visited (and given that it was free for teachers, my recently-acquired Pass éducation was actually put into good use), and for those who are planning a trip to Budapest, I would definitely recommend making some time for it. Note though, that many of the images and videos shown—as well as the interviews with past political prisoners—are rather graphic in nature, so this museum may not be for every traveler.

 

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By the time I was finished in the museum, it was getting on 14h, and I was starting to get a bit hungry. Thankfully, a bistro I had pinned on my Mapstr—Két Szerecsen—was only a ten-minute walk away. I ordered the chicken paprikash and a glass of red wine (though I can’t remember the region of Hungary it is from, just that the waiter recommended it), and settled in to a very cozy and filling meal before setting out on another long walk.

 

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I started my post-lunch hike with a visit to Heroes’ Square, on the northeastern side of the city.

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Before making my way back down to the river to see the Hungarian Parliament by night (and by “night” I mean 17h30).

 

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I then decided to head back to the Christmas market for a last bit of hot wine drinking and shopping (yay new pair of earrings for me), and also to grab a chimney cake as a sort of last-night treat.

 

 

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It was actually a good thing I did the latter because even though it was absolutely massive, and I couldn’t manage to eat it all, it did keep me full throughout the night, especially since dinner at the hostel was a bit more…special…this evening.

 

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Yep, little pizza toasts. Which essentially became an odd sort of pan con tomate once they ran out of cheese.

 
Why was there no actual food this time around, you ask? Good question. Basically it was because the crew spent the budget almost entirely on making this:

 

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Yeah.

 

 

 

With that though, I decided to call it a night early in order to be able to get at least a little sleep before heading back out today. This is going to be my last traveling weekend for a while, and honestly, I’m not too mad about it. I want to be able to be settled at home again for a good while now.

 

 

Especially since I’ve still got that thesis chapter draft to finish.

 

 

 

I really should be in contact more with my advisors…

 

 

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183 – 196

 

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All that matters is this tarte tatin…

 

 

To say it’s been a while would be an understatement.

 

 

It’s not that I’ve lost the inspiration to write, it’s more that things just started piling on one right after the other, and I kept just pushing all of this back further and further, saying I’d get to it. Eventually.

 

Eventually is almost 20 days later, apparently.

 

The one good thing about this though is that other than a few shows to write on/other significant events, the past few days weren’t incredibly overloaded with things to the point where writing about them would be impossible. For the sake of time, however, I’m going to keep things brief again.

 

Let’s start with the first of the two shows I saw over the course of the past few days, Le Récit d’un homme inconnu at the MC93.

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Those familiar with Checkhov (and who also know French) might recognize the title, as the play is an adaptation of one of his stories. The plot can basically be summed up as follows:

  • Young woman in an unfulfilling marriage leaves her husband to seek refuge at the house of her lover – a young, rich playboy type – who really had no idea she was serious when she said she was going to leave her husband for him and is thus rather surprised to find her at his door.

 

  • Said young man has in his employ a valet – the titular unknown man – who is not quite what he seems. You see, he is not merely a valet. No. He is a revolutionary, one who has taken up the position as valet in order to obtain information on the young man’s father : a prominent political figure and, I should note, someone who never appears on stage. He quickly realizes the futility of this, as his employer only seems interested in half-reading books while laughing to himself like someone on the verge of transforming into a Bond villain. However, the valet also develops a liking for the young woman.

 

  • As these things usually go, the young woman falls pregnant. The young man casts her out – not knowing that she was pregnant – , and the valet, because he just really likes her, whisks her away to Italy where they live blissfully in Venice for a few months before the young woman goes into labor. She has the baby – a girl – and then dies immediately after, likely by suicide. The play ends some years later with the now disillusioned valet returning to his former employer to deliver him his daughter, who he is now responsible for.

Unlike the dance piece I saw at this theatre a few months ago, this piece was staged in their smaller salle transformable or transformable space (think a large black box). Upstage was a long white partition divided by three white doors. A row of empty wine and champagne lined the front of said partition. Hanging from the ceiling was what looked like a closed blue umbrella (this was, of course, opened later when the young woman and the valet flee to Venice). Given the smaller size of the space, most of the seats were raked, but there were a few placed on the ground, on the same level as the playing space, shaped in a sort of proscenium arch.

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Manage to snap this on my way out…

The staging remained more or less frontal, with a few exceptions. First, at the start of the second act, the valet began by reciting a long monologue about how he came to work in the house, culminating with the reading of a rather bellicose letter he wrote to his former employer. At one point during the reading, the actor pulled out actual copies of the letter and began distributing them amongst various audience members. Think of it as a way of bringing us partially into his world – the monologue was addressed to the audience as well -, thus a first sort of spatial-temporal blending that would occur in this production.

 

The second involved the use of a video projector onto which was shown a pre-recorded video of the valet and the young woman in Venice. At first corresponding somewhat in ‘real time’ to the events being narrated by the valet (yeah…it was a long monologue), the temporality of the video soon began to distance itself from the narrative being crafted on stage, creating a second fictional space within the framework of the principle one.

 

Though not even this twisting and folding of spatial-temporality could distract from the fact that this was a four hour play that could have easily been condensed down to two – at most three. Not really helping was the fact that the actors spoke in an affective manner that over-emphasized the passage and rhythm of time.

 

 

The second show I saw though was more like a homecoming than anything.

 

 

Let me preface: when I was a freshman in high school, I was cast in a workshop production of Complicité’s Mnemonic. To say this show changed my life might sound a bit cliché, but it’s true. This was the first time I fully immersed myself in something truly experimental and ensemble-based (because listen, when you live in the suburbs, it can sometimes feel like it’s musical theatre or nothing which…merits a post of its own because I have so many thoughts, too many, to fit here), and I can say that my fervor for all things theatrically strange and daring could find their roots here.

 

Anyway, on Friday, March 30, I saw Simon McBurney’s The Encounter at Odéon.

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This was pretty much a one man show – or well, one man plus an absolutely intense team of sound designers and engineers that he actually took the time to acknowledge, something not many do, at least not in speech – but the premise was more about a crossing of narratives. During a talkback the seminar I’m taking had with McBurney the afternoon before the show, one of the things he emphasized was how we are all storytellers. That storytelling was at the heart of his theatre practice. This play had at its center the recounting of photographer Loren McIntyre’s 1969 expedition into the Amazon and subsequent contact with the Mayoruna tribe. What starts as an attempt to document them through photographs to later be sold to National Geographic later turns into an exploration on the very notion of time, and the nature of those moments that photography seeks to suspend, to pull from a timeline (or time-wheel) to remain in stillness.

 

Rather than telling McIntyre’s story in one go, McBurney punctuated it with moments of interruption by his daughter, who – via a pre-recorded voice-over – kept entering her father’s workspace, asking him why he was still up working so late, and whether he could tell her another story to help her fall asleep. And really, in the end, this little girl who both was and was not there becomes the most important thing, this potential future that has the potential to respond to the mistakes of those that came before her. Though, unlike the most recent of Mouawad’s plays, this almost ecological message was not hammered into our faces.

 

I should go back to the presence/non-presence thing because the most fantastic thing about this show was without a doubt the way it played with sound. Upon taking their seat, each member of the audience found a pair of headphones attached to the back of their chairs. Oh yes, we wore headphones throughout the entire show – and this was almost mandatory, as taking them off would have plunged you into almost complete silence and torn you out of what was in the process of being crafted on stage. And really, I don’t think I could say enough about the sound design because there were moments when I honestly could not tell if what I was hearing was happening on stage or if it was something/one in the house. Granted, having this kind of experience means in part giving yourself over entirely to what is happening, and opening yourself up to be affected, but really, it is incredibly difficult not to. Hell, I was sitting in the second row of the first mezzanine, and I found myself leaning over, wanting more than anything to dive in even further.

 

Anyway, enough of the theatrics. On to other things!

 

Namely, food-related things.

 

I’m happy to say I have two new restaurants to add to my ever-growing list of places I like going out to eat here. Coincidentally, both of these places involve small-plates dining.

 

First, L’Arbre Jaune, or, what happens when you and your dining companion (but really, mostly you because your hunger makes you indecisive) can’t decide on where to go for dinner, and end up making a last-minute reservation on the one place you’ve managed to find that lets you do that online.

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We started with an order of chicken liver pâté and saucisson, then moved on to a cauliflower velouté, clams, beef cheeks, pig’s trotters in filo, and finally concluded with cheese (yeah…the problem with this having been two or so weeks ago, I cannot remember what cheese we had). All of it washed down with a nice half bottle of red that I also can’t remember the name of because I don’t take notes on this thing, and there is obviously a reason why I don’t blog about food.

 

As someone who usually does quite a bit of reasearch before going out to eat, I was slightly apprehensive about coming here at first. Thankfully, my fears were assuaged with a more than pleasant meal (holy shit those beef cheeks were amazing), that came out to a more than reasonable price (less than 40eu per person for all we had).

 

The second food adventure though was one that was a very long time coming – and one that I got to share with an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while.

 

This past week, one of my very good friends from high school came to visit me (!), and other than the usual pastry/coffee/cheese/charcuterie stops I usually take visitors on, we decided to treat ourselves to one night of indulgence. So I made reservations this past Tuesday at Au Passage.

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Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to schedule this meal on a Tuesday, as it sort of set the precedent rather high for the rest of the week, but when eating here has been something of a goal for the past few years, all of that nonsense pretty much gets thrown out the window. We had a bit of trouble deciding what to order at first – everything looked so good, and I don’t doubt that any choice we made would’ve been a good one -, but then our waitress mentioned that they only had two portions of the scallops left for the night. Thus our choices were made: terrine, radishes and butter to start, followed by roasted carrots and chèvre, then asparagus, ramps, and lardon, then the famous scallops with celery, celeriac purée and saffron, and finally papardelle with lamb ragout. As to the wine, the thing I do remember is that it was a red from the southwest and that it, like all their wines, was biodynamic. I never claimed to be an expert on these things, so I’m going to chalk up remembering this much for a win. Maybe next time I’ll remember the cépage…

 

And so began a week filled with insanely long walks (of course), consumption of viennoiseries, and picnicking during the first legitimately nice day of spring (yeah it started to sprinkle on us – and just us – a bit towards the end of our picnic lunch on Saturday, but that’s what umbrellas are for).

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Of course we stopped at La Fontaine de Belleville for some wine
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Also, special shout-out to this IPA from Paname Brewing Co.

And since I started this post by speaking about theatre, I’m going to end it with theatre as well, but this time on something that directly involves me.

 

A few weeks ago, I put out word on Facebook that I really missed performing (which…yeah the back and forth I do with myself sometimes over whether or not I should have tried balancing performing more with my research is still a thing that happens relatively often). One of my facebook friends (whose show I had seen in the beginning of the fall) here reached out and mentioned they had a friend coming into the city soon who would be starting up a workshop, and would I be interested in learning more/possibly be involved? I said yes, connected with the workshop director via sending in an intro video , and things jived well enough to the point that last night I was back in a studio playing with a group of other performers, something I haven’t done in far too long. Really, I felt like I was coming home again in a room of (mostly) strangers. Sometimes I get a bit of anxiety when meeting new people. Theatre – and actually rehearsal spaces more specifically – is the only place where that does not happen.

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And it’s getting a bit late now, so I’ll close with a quick note on a discussion I attended this evening on architecture and the banlieues that also incorporated the question of theatre (in part because it was held in a theatre, but also because one of the panelists was theatre director Karim Bel Kacem). I’m still sort of processing this one, since it literally just happened, but I’ll just give a little shout-out here to a boyfriend who was very on-point with this recommendation.

 

 

 

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Food-ventures (63)

Mornings in Père Lachaise

The things I do for food.

I wanted to keep riding my emotional high for a bit before reading and travel-prepping roped me back in, so I decided to give myself a food quest today partly because I haven’t treated myself to a meal out in a while (yay constant stream of leftovers resulting from big-batch cooking!). It was also a good excuse to get out of the house instead of lazying around all day, although I probably should have paid a little more attention to the weather before leaving my apartment without an umbrella. Mist – which briefly turns to actual rain – does not make for the greatest of umbrella-less walking conditions.

Croissant at Blé Sucré

After cutting through Père Lachaise, my first stop was Blé Sucré, where I had hoped to snatch a kouign amann, but unfortunately had to make due with a (still excellent) croissant, seeing as how they had run out of the former by the time I got there. So much for showing up at 10am instead of 9 like I had intended. Ah well.

I had a bit of time to kill after that, so I decided to take a little stroll along what was the inspiration for the Highline in New York: the Coulée Verte. Stretching along a former elevated metro track, this promenade runs parallel to ave. Daumesnil, and drops you off a little before you reach Bastille. There were quite a few joggers up there this morning, though I’m not sure I would have felt safe running along some of the more slippery surfaces (seriously, there’s this wood – or at least, wood-like – material that’s used on some surfaces here…literally the worst thing to walk on when there is even a hint of moisture).

You really can’t beat the fall colors though…

My next stop was actually the primary reason for this walk, as it had been quite a while since I had been to this place, and I figured that, given the sudden drop in temperature, a visit would be well warranted. Plus, I was just really craving a nice bowl of ramen.

Of course there’s a line, but when you’re one person, lines become more or less meaningless

I didn’t take a picture of my ramen to share with you lovely people, but quite frankly, it was because I was too busy devouring it the minute it was placed in front of me. In my defense: mist and no umbrella. Fortunately, the rain actually started to let up after this point, so I was able to finish up my walk in peace. First, a walk up la Rue des Martyrs to walk off some of my lunch:

Rue des Martyrs

Then it was over to the canal, where once again, I was left mesmerized by the peaceful beauty that is Paris in the fall.


I will never get over how much I love this.

And it was here that I made my final stop at Ten Belles for a noisette and, because I had walked around 3-4 hours, a chocolate-caramel brownie.

This definitely makes up for leaving my umbrella at home

Both of which proved to be helpful fuel for the walk back home:


How I know I’m almost home
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Yes, it’s all multiple choice. Yes, it does last 3 hours (31)

When people talk about culture shock, usually it has something to do with local customs/ways of doing things that are unfamiliar to us – styles of dress, dining habits, what exactly counts as personal space, to name a few. But something that many travelers/immigrants (maybe at some point I’ll talk about why I’m trying to move away from the term ‘expat’) don’t get to experience is the cultural interactions and confrontations that arise in the classroom, specifically when it comes to styles of testing.

In France, the big exam is the baccalauréat, which is probably most akin to the AP test(s) in that students are asked to prove competence primarily through written essays – although, if I remember correctly, there were some multiple choice questions in my AP English and French exams. Consequently – and I say this from my little bit of experience teaching at a high school three years ago – the students are taught in ways that emphasize the importance of written arguments and succinct analysis. What they are not taught is how to tackle a seemingly endless scantron sheet, which poses a problem for those who want to go to the US for university. Back in California, we were basically ‘training’ for the SAT for ten years, what with STAR testing, and although the SAT still has its stresses and demons that must be conquered, sitting down to take it does not feel particularly strange or unfamiliar.

I had the first meeting with the SAT students today, and of course because I enjoy being evil – apparently – I had them hit the ground running with a diagnostic test. 40 minutes, 24 questions. Some of them finished, others skipped a few, but the most popular reaction in the end was one of shock and disbelief. Shock at the unexpected density of the thing, disbelief at how fast the time ticked by. Of course, there’s the added pressure that comes with taking a test that’s not in your first language, but the majority of them seemed determined to stick it out, even after I had just run them through the gauntlet (realizing that French could help them with some of the tougher vocabulary in the  reading texts helped as well, I think). It’s crazy to look at their faces and think about how that was me ten(!!) years ago, nervously waiting to confront what I thought then was the most important test of my life. Thank goodness these kids know very little/nothing about the GRE, MCAT, GMAT, LSAT…

After the class finished and I had answered more questions about Harvard than I ever have in one sitting, I jettisoned over to Le Comptoire de la Gastronomie to meet with a friend, her mother, and friends of my friend for dinner. The food is still excellent, but they have redone the space since I was last there three years ago and I’m not sure what to think about the new design. A bit too modern, perhaps? I think keeping the red fabrics that once covered the chair cushions instead of the turquoise ones that cover them now could have helped in offsetting that. 
Then again, when you have a beautiful steak tartare staring you in the face, you sort of forget about interior decorating (as well as remember that, as far as culture shock goes, food never really presented that problem for you). 

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25 – 29

So I’ve been a bit MIA lately (so much for the daily posting…), but in my defense, I think I have a good excuse.
I’ve been eating. (Prepare yourselves for some rapid-fire restaurant commentating)

The Normande galette from Wednesday’s dinner at Breizh Café. Behold that beautiful Camembert…

I figured that since we had already gotten the museums and sites and whatnot out of the way, I’d devote my mom’s last few days here to taking her to as many different restaurants as possible (so…three), ticking off the boxes in terms of Parisian/French ‘must-tries’ that she had not yet experienced – and would quite frankly be hard-pressed to find back in the states. 

One of these things were Breton-style crêpes, and in particular the savory buckwheat galettes served with a pitcher of crisp, dry (my personal preference) cider. Normally, I would have taken her down to Josselin near Montparnasse for this, but as I didn’t want to chance a wait (the rain was being finicky that day), I opted instead to take her to Breizh Café in the Marais, a place that I had been keen on trying for a while but had yet to make it to. As far as crêpes go, the menu offered the traditional ‘completes’ of ham, cheese, and egg, as well as some more interesting combinations like the one I chose, which came with prosciutto, camembert and a salad. Overall, I think I still prefer Josselin to this place – crêpes are more filling, and the prices are a tad friendlier, though even in the Marais, crêpes have not gotten too exorbitantly priced – but for the ease that came with being able to reserve a table (highly recommended), I would gladly come here again.

And really, it was a good thing we did not overstuff ourselves because Thursday’s dinner was a trip to what is still my absolute favorite place to go out to eat in this city : Chez Gladines

If you aren’t smothering your duck breast in Roquefort sauce, are you even living?

Now, Gladines has a few locations around the city, but the original restaurant in the Buttes aux Cailles neighborhood in the 13th arrondissement is still the best of the bunch. The fact that its a bit tucked away from the main tourist areas of the city means that it still retains a lot of the lively spirit and soul of the immediate area – which, coincidentally, happens to be frequented in large part by students living at the Cité Universitaire, my old graduate residence, and only a short tram/metro ride away. As the photo above suggests, portions are incredibly generous, but prices are definitely reflective of the budgets of most of the clientele. And yes, the fact that the dinner crowd – especially later in the evening – is comprised primarily of 20/early 30-somethings means that it can get rather…jovial…in there after a certain hour, but this energy becomes rather infectious, especially when it is evident that the staff is having just as much fun as the patrons. The fact that the food is also delicious – those potatoes are still some of the most beautiful, garlicky, fried things I have ever consumed, and the salad still makes me laugh with its attempt to add a bit of ‘health’ to this atomic calorie bomb – and wines by the glass start at around 3/3.50euros, almost makes you never want to leave.

Finally came Friday, my mom’s last night in Paris, and thus a night for some more…’typical’…parisian dining. 

Not many places do the ‘radishes and sea salt’ thing as a complementary offering. Pity.

Le Temps des Cerises is a bistro located in the 4th arrondissement, off a side street just down the road from the Place de la Bastille. The bistro itself has been around for a while – I think the building, which looks like a little house, may have conservation status – but it hasn’t fallen into the trap of resting on its years to the detriment of the food, as some other historical eateries have. There’s a small dining room downstairs, and when we arrived, I feared that we’d be waiting a while, even though we had made a reservation, as all the tables were full. Fortunately, we were ushered up the stairs to another small room on the upper floor, this one a bit quieter than the bar/dining area downstairs. And maybe you can glean this from the photo, but there was an unmistakable warmth and coziness that enveloped the room and almost made me want to curl up in my chair and fall asleep, perhaps with a large mug of tea. Thankfully, I had had my afternoon espresso earlier that day, so I was able to stay wide awake for my meal.

We split an order of escargot to start, followed by chicken and fried potatoes for my mom, ray, mashed potatoes, and micro greens for me, and then finished with a tarte tatin for dessert, all of it washed down with a lovely carafe of white wine (and I didn’t note which one we chose, but I believe it was a Languedoc…). A stereotypical bistro meal, I guess you could say, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to add this place to my rotation of eateries I take people to when they visit me.

And then Saturday (yesterday) morning, I dropped my mom off at Charles de Gaulle, leaving her with one last treat for the long trip back to San Francisco : chocolates from Jacques Genin.

She was worried security would try and confiscate these. Of course they didn’t, but I did tell her if they tried to just eat them all…out of spite.

Last night also included a visit to the Experimental Cocktail Club, another place I have been meaning to try since I was last living here, as well as marked another personal first : going to a bar alone. Okay, this one might not count because the reason I was there alone was that I was waiting for my friends to arrive, but saddling up to the bar, ordering my cocktail – as the name suggests, their menu changes frequently with new creations, so the fact that I had something called an Old Cuban last night will probably make no difference should I, or any of you reading this, choose to visit this bar in the future – and people watching for a bit was not as awkward or uncomfortable as I originally thought it might be. There’s a part of me that would maybe consider doing something like this again, but perhaps next time I’ll do it on a weekday…oh and bring a book.

All this brings us to today which consisted of going to a drop-in acting class, seeing the French entry for this years foreign language Oscar race (120 Battements par minute / 120 Beats Per Minute, a film centered around the Paris chapter of Act Up and the French government’s (non) response to the AIDs crisis in the 1990s), and then heading to La Fontaine de Belleville to do some reading. Tomorrow it’s back at the BNF where I will continue with the super fun task of continually convincing myself that my project is a good idea (that is, assuming I get a better handle on the thing). Dissertations are a bitch.

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More small successes (day 10)

I want to get back to the whole ‘recording mini successes’ idea I had a few weeks ago because I think today’s success merits it.
I finally have hot sauce again.

I don’t care if this thing cost twice as much as it would in the States. It’s mine, and I love it.

Granted, I had to shell out about 9.50eu for it at Lafayette Gourmet, but when your grocery store shelves are not lined with an abundance of different hot sauce brands, you kind of take what you can get. And it’s worth it. I still need to add a (giant) bottle of Siracha to my collection, but as I have yet to make a trip to Tang Frères in the 13th – where I am almost certain I will be able to find it at a decent, if not still somewhat annoying, price – its designated spot in my pantry remains empty.

And because multiple successes are also better than just one, I’ll add a trip to Pizzeria Popolare (of the Big Mamma restaurant group) for dinner to my list. Locals and visitors who have eaten (or attempted) to have eaten at one of the Big Mamma restaurants know that due to their policy of not taking reservations, the lines can stretch around the block, with wait times at some of the restos at times exceeding two hours. General wisdom suggests to arrive a bit before opening time to make sure you are seated right away, but luckily, this being a Tuesday, my mom and I managed to get in after only ten minutes of waiting after arriving thirty minutes after the restaurant opened. This speedy entry may also have had to do with the number of large (think 4-5 people) though incomplete parties ahead of us, but I’ll just go ahead and add tonight’s experience to my list of reasons as to why it benefits to dine solo (or à deux) in Paris.
Oh and the pizza? It was delicious, and at only 5eu for a Margherita pizza (what I ended up ordering) incredibly wallet-friendly.

The Margherita at Pizzeria Popolare (Instagram @effie143)

I’m going to get a bit political for this last success, but only because I have been asked recently what it’s like living abroad when there is so much turmoil going on at home. This success is courtesy of my phone plan, which allows me to call the US for free while in France. It’s very easy at times to forget your position as a voter while being so far removed, but voters abroad are not insignificant in number and our voices do – and will – count if we make ourselves heard. So when, for example, news started trickling in late Monday night (early Tuesday morning for me) about the impending end of DACA, I felt confident knowing that my call to my rep’s answering machine would not only not cost an arm and a leg but that I could make as many as I theoretically want. Travel is a privilege. And especially for those (like me) who have dual citizenship (US-EU in my case), the fact that I can move freely without worrying about where my home will be, or if I will even have one to return to, is something that can very easily be taken for granted, as are the numerous benefits this movement will bring to my education and future career opportunities. Travel itself may not necessarily be at the center of the conversation around DACA, but movement is. And the sudden restriction and hyper surveillance of movement of thousands of individuals – who were already under some level of constant watch – is irresponsible and inhumaine.
So if you are abroad and your phone plan (and your finances if international calls are not included) allow it, call your representatives.

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Back in Paris, Day 8

So due to a weird mixup on someone’s (mine, maybe? Who knows) part, my mom’s flight was actually scheduled for today instead of tomorrow. After a quick rush to Châtelet to see her off on the RER on the way to the airport, I went back home to actually get some version of put together before I set out for the day. And since I had an unexpected day to myself, of course I spent the majority of it walking.

Oh, and buying books.

Behold the official reading list for Greece summer 2017. The bottom two books are new additions, the top left a gift from (and written by) a friend, and Genet is there because of course he is. I’m feeling the pull towards his particular brand of sublime destruction at the moment. 

Since I am leaving to spend the next month in warmer climates tomorrow, meals had to be strategized today. I wanted to get a jumpstart on all the healthy eating I’m about to do – as well as to counteract all the pastries I’ve been eating – but choices were somewhat limited, given how the whole city seemingly shuts down in August. Thankfully, Wild & the Moon was open, and as the weather today more closely resembled fall than summer, I opted for a bowl of their stew of the day. Today it was a Thai-style curry.

Thai-style curry over rice and quinoa at Wild & the Moon

Granted, this move towards healthier eating was later practically nullified with a piece of apricot-pistachio tart at Le Loir dans la Théière (accompanied by a pot of Darjeeling tea), but I think the 2.5 mile walk home made up for that.

Apricot-pistachio tart at Le Loir dans la Théière

And now here I am. Alone in this apartment that I will have to fill with myself until the time comes that the lack of his presence no longer affects the way I move through it. There is a certain potentiality for creativity in that though, and the optimistic side of me wants to keep that alive and present.

Because I am here. 
Because I can move through things on my terms, heal on my terms. 

A month away should – will – be good. I still have a dissertation to tackle after all. 

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Back in Paris, Day 5

Going back to the whole ‘mini successes’ thing today because this evening I treated my mom to her first tasting menu experience as a thank you for helping me move (hauling 5 suitcases up six flights of stairs is not easy, even with two people).

I chose to take her to Le Chateaubriand partly because as far as tasting menus go, this one is pretty affordable – although there is no conceivable way I’d ever be able to make it a regular thing anyway, at least in the immediate future – and partly because I had been wanting to go back since my first visit there four years ago. There’s almost no point in going through what we ate in detail since the menu changes daily, but the basic structure is that there is a set menu of five starters, followed by a first course, a fish course, a meat course, and two desserts (although one could also choose to substitute a cheese plate here). The option for wine pairings with each course at an extra charge is also available – and which I did the first time I ate here – , but we chose instead to stick to just one glass each.

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Gougères at Le Chateaubriand

 

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Steamed salt cod with yellow bell pepper, verbena, lemon, and a chorizo broth

 

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The one standby – other than the gougères – , and an egg yolk I actually enjoyed eating

 

I remember the first time I came here, I mentioned to our waiter (after he had asked about any potential allergies or food aversions) that I did not like eggs*, a fact that still stands to this day. I don’t quite know why I did not bother to do the same this time around – perhaps I did not expect to see this dessert placed in front of me again – but the end of the meal saw me face to face with my nemesis the egg yolk.

 

But unlike during my first visit, this time I actually popped the thing in my mouth in one bite – as instructed by our server – and to my surprise, I found myself actually quite enjoying it. Maybe it was the fact that I got the yolk down first before tasting the rest of the components, or maybe it was the fact that it tasted remarkably like an exceptionally creamy crème brûlée, but I wasn’t having an averse reaction to it like I thought I would.

 

So I guess that’s another success for the day. I ate an egg yolk and was fine with it. This does not mean that I am ready to graduate to omelettes quite yet. Got to have some principles after all.

 

 

*exceptions to the egg-hating include things like quiche, frittata, and strata – where you really cannot taste the egg at all – as well as things that involve egg in the preparation but it’s not the star of the show.