Fine French Cuisine

So for the past couple of weeks, a group of my classmates and I have been eating at a state-subsidized student cafeteria almost every day for lunch. We’ve coined the food “Deliciously Mediocre,” and constantly try to pretend that we actually know what we’re ordering when we point at the stuff behind the sneeze guard. The food, for the most part, is unrecognizable (there are vegetables, a starch, some stinky cheese, and either brown stuff or gray stuff), but a full meal for 4 bucks that doesn't make us sick (too often) is impossible to find elsewhere, so we deal with it. On Tuesday, unfortunately, I decided to stray from the tried-and-true brown stuff and go with the gray stuff, against the suggestions of my equally ignorant friends and the surprised looks from the lady with the spatula. Upon taking the first bite, I knew exactly what kind of situation I’d put myself into: I was chewing on a big mouthful of pig intestines in a lovely, salty pork gravy. I’ve eaten and loved chitlins before, but they were merely a medium for about a gallon of hot sauce. The delicate palates of the French, however, don’t seem to favor this necessary condiment with their pseudo-meats, much to my disdain. Of course, being me, and having told my classmates stories of all the stupid dares I’ve taken over the years, I wasn’t about to back down – I finished them with a smile. One of my French classmates, Vincent, consoled me during the chow-down: “Eet ees okay, Briahn, zees ees only zee Small Intestine, yes?”

On Thursday, after finally punching through the aforementioned group project, I went to an AUP party at a bar near the Champs-Elysee. I came to a conclusion regarding that school, based on the time I’ve spent with some of its fine students: if I ever have a son, he is going there; if I ever have a daughter, she is not going there. Need I say more? (N.B.: Ben, you’re at the wrong school, buddy – it’s time to buy a plane ticket, man up, get over the fact that you hate French people and change your major to Art Appreciation or Comparative Literature, whatever that is. Space shuttles are a big waste of money anyway...)

We had another school happy hour on Friday after our crazy Australian Organizational Behavior class finished, and I went out with some buddies and met a group of Swedish girls at Birdland (which is becoming a fallback late-night bar for our group for obvious reasons). On Saturday I woke up early and took the Metro out to Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise to see the graves of Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Frederic Chopin, and many others. The cemetery has a great website, if anyone is interested (http://www.pere-lachaise.com/perelachaise.php?lang=en). After that, I cooked dinner for an AUP friend and met up with my classmates for drinks in the Latin Quarter at a buddy’s house. Saturday night was Nuit Blanche (White Night), a yearly event where most of Paris and its attractions are open all night long, including places like the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. I headed to an insane outdoor Brazilian dance party in the center of town for a little while, then ended up in a great bar called 31 in my neighborhood. I’m convinced that the place is owned by the Russian mob, as the entire place (walls, furniture, ceiling) is covered in red velvet, and they have an extensive vodka menu. I ordered a glass of port, thinking I was going to get the usual tiny cordial, at best, but I was pleasantly surprised when I received a giant martini glass full of the stuff. It was the first time I felt like I’d paid a reasonable price for anything since I’ve been here...

I’ve been searching like mad for a place that rents horns over here, but I’ve had no luck so far, so playing in the jazz bars is on hold for now. School is going well, just an awful lot going on; since we have a different class each week, everything is becoming a blur, and our individual assignments for all of the classes are going to be due pretty soon. We don’t have any classes this week, so I’m going to do my best to get as much work done as I can (anyone who knows what a gigantic lie I just told is chuckling right now). I am getting stuff done already, actually, so we’ll see what happens.

More pictures to come, sorry for the delay – still no internet in the apartment. My place is coming together slowly but surely – I have discovered my three awful French TV channels, I got a cool new Scarface poster in the Metro, and I had a thriving basil plant for a while, but it died on my window sill. I’m still not very fond of my electric toilet, but I’ll get over it. Please be in touch!