For the last two weeks I've been working at the coffee shop's location at the Louvre. This is exciting for not a whole lot of reasons, EXCEPT that I got a Louvre employee badge out of it, which gives me access to all sorts of closed-to-the-public areas of the museum, including secret washrooms (for anyone who has eve had the pleasure of visiting a Louvre washroom, you know that this is a luxury!), and the Louvre gym! Who knew that among the museum's masterwork galleries there's a fabulous room where the men and women of the Louvre can go to work up a sweat? I suppose that if you're responsible for ensuring the safety of the Mona Lisa and her friends, you might want to muscle up a bit in order to discourage any would-be art vandals/heisters.

I'm in full trip research mode now. I don't have a lot of time left before I hit the road, and because there are so many things I want to do in my ten weeks, I'm feeling a need to be more diligent than normal about beforehand research. This trip is proving to be a little more complicated to plan if only because I've never taken a trip that requires so many border crossings and visas; as of now, not counting stops in the EU, the border crossings that require visas are Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Egypt. I'm struggling between wanting to see it all, but not wanting to rush through everything, and so I'm contemplating paring down my destination list, but it's so hard to cut anywhere! The more research I do, the more I want to do everything...scuba diving in Turkey and Egypt, visiting ancient ruins everywhere(which ones are must sees, which ones to take a miss on???), hiking the Lycian Way, etc...tough decisions, right??;)

Lastly, goodness gracious, where has the time gone? In two and a half weeks, my life in Paris as I know it will be all but over. Honestly, as I'm coming up on the eleven month mark of my Paris sojourn, I feel like I'm ready to move on. That's not to say that I'm sick of Paris, or am unhappy here, it's just that I've seen Paris through almost one full cycle of the seasons, and I've come to appreciate everything that this city has to offer, but I feel like the last year has really been a year if living in a fantasy land, and I'm ready to get back to "real" life, whatever that might entail. I'm feeling indecisive about what's going to happen once i get home. Vancouver or Toronto? Go teach English abroad? More school? Hopefully the answers will come to me somewhere along the road from Paris to Jerusalem....

For most of the ten and a half months that I've been here in Paris, I haven't really experienced any significant bouts of homesickness. Don't get me wrong, there are some things and many people that I miss a lot, but for the most part, I've been pretty satisfied with life here, and don't find myself longing to go home. The only times that I've suffered from any degree of homesickness came on Christmas Day (not so much because it was Christmas, but because I had a truly frustrating day in Morocco), and for about a week at the beginning of June when I got back from a short trip home for a family wedding; truthfully, for a couple of days there I was really hating Paris and couldn't wait to go home...but those feelings have since passed. That being said, I've gotta say that I am missing spending the summer at home. In my mind, summer vacation is all about barbeques, swimming, and spending lazy late afternoons and evenings on sunny patios, sharing a pitcher with friends. Paris is a great city, but Parisians are a little too straightlaced and conservative for grilled meat and beer on patios....however, seeing as there's been a month-long strike by city workers in Toronto (striking city workers=closed pools, and piles upon piles of stinking rubbish everywhere...ugh...I don't even want to think about what Chinatown must smell like at this point), perhaps this was a good summer to decide to live as an expat.

On a totally unrelated note, I've recently discovered a relatively new music podcast that I think is pretty fantastic. If you have a chance, I would encourage you all to check out "Rough Sundays", which is hosted and produced by a guy named Aric S. Queen. I first became acquainted with his work when he used to help produce a podcast about life in China, and have occasionally followed his blog, and I think that he's just hilarious. Happy listening!

Overheard at the Louvre

On my most recent visit to the Louvre I was amused and appalled when I happened to overhear a conversation between a mother and her young son. I was standing in the gallery where Da Vinci's Mona Lisa (La Jaconde) is on display, and while there was a predictably massive crowd at the center of the room where the smiling lady holds her court, I was busy admiring Les noces de Cana by Paolo Caliari (aka Veronese), the massive work that hangs on the opposite wall. If you're not familar with this particular painting, or your Gospel stories, the marriage at Cana is where Jesus performed his first miracle by turning water into wine. For the record, I only learned this on an earlier visit to the Louvre when a Born-Again Christian who happened to be visiting at the same time explained the significance of the painting to me.It's a huge painting, and so it's easy to just stand and stare and get lost in the many mini-scenes that are taking place on the canvas, however I was snapped back to reality when I overheard this little jewel of a conversation between the mother and son:

Son (pointing to the Les noces de Cana): Ma, what is this?

Mother:.....................it's....uh......it's da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper!!

Son: WHOA!!!! How do you know?

Mother:....hmmm.....well, it's obvious that's Jesus in the middle and he's with all of his disciples and they're celebrating.

Son: Who are all of the other people?

Mother: Well, the last supper was a huge party, so I guess they're dinner guests.

Son (admiringly): How do you know all of this?

Mother (wisely): It says right there on the plaque....(points and pronounces in Spanish) "noces de Cana". Noces means night, and Cana means dinner!

Sigh....this exchange left me both laughing and cringing, not so much for the inaccuracy of the mom's explanation or her faux-Spanish reading of the caption plaque, but because she was so completely convinced that she was right when she was entirely wrong...

If I Were A Boy

Lately, I've developed quite a liking for Beyonce. There's something about her music that is just perfect for summer time weather, and so a lot of her songs have made it into frequent rotation on my iPod...Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)....Crazy in Love....Baby Boy....all catchy and highly likable songs, and so I feel no shame in admitting that I quite like them. Beyonce is so fabulous that even the French love her, and they're a hard crowd to impress! Her songs are wildly popular here (the other day I heard "Independent Woman" for the first time in probably eight years), her face was all over the Paris metros this spring when she was hawking some Nintendo toy, and, for the most part, French people seem to respect her (it probably helps that she's married to a rap mogul...French people love their rap).

Proof that Beyonce is simply amazing? Her songs have become a touchstone reference for learning English grammar! Yesterday I was at work, making lattes and mindless chitchat, when A., one of my very funny french coworkers , started to 'sing' "If I Were A Boy". Imagine a short and compact, wannabe ghetto superstar, crooning the line "if i were a boy" with a heavy French accent....PRICELESS. Halfway through his solo, A. stopped, turned to me, and asked in a low voice, "uh, Steph, why is it 'if I were a boy'? Shouldn't it be 'if I was a boy'?" Seeing as all of my previous conversations with A. have almost exclusively been on the topics of how he's really a NYC gangsta (I'm not sure where his obsession with NYC comes from, but it's impressive how much he seems to know about the city, seeing as he's never been), how much better his English is than mine (given the nature of his question, I'm beginning to think that he might be right), and which one of us will be making more money in ten years, his question was way out of left field, and needless to say, I was completely caught off guard. Being a native English speaker, you would think that I would know the answer to the question, but I'm ashamed to say that I didn't have an immediate response for him! After a couple of minutes of pondering his question, I decided that as the only native Anglophone among the people working, I couldn't lose face and admit that I didn't know, so I did what every student would do when they don't quite know the answer: I made something up...I mumbled something about the conditional vs the past, blah blah blah. The truth is, in all of my schooling, I've never ever had a serious English grammar lesson beyond the most rudimentary issues (i.e. what's the difference between a noun and a verb?). Leave it to Beyonce to expose serious gaps in my knowledge of the English language! Just for the record, I have never been a fan of "If I Were A Boy", and yesterday's conversation has confirmed what I already knew: it's a ridiculous song.

Overheard at the Crepe Stand

This afternoon, following a visit to the Musee national du moyen age (also known as the musee cluny), I decided to hit one of my favourite crepe stands for a delicious sucre et canelle crepe. While I was waiting for the crepe man to prepare my snack, the French equivalent of the Snowbirds passed overhead, prompting the couple standing behind me to question if perhaps Paris was under terrorist attack! When the crepe man heard this, he chuckled and explained to them that it was just rehearsal for Bastille Day (July 14th), and then said something to the effect of "glory to the motherland, isn't it wonderful?!" I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not, but right away the woman rolled her eyes, and responded that maybe they shouldn't be rehearsing because there's nothing much worth celebrating. The exchange that followed went something like this:

Crepe Man: You mean democracy and freedom aren't something that we should be proud of?

Woman: Does democracy really exist?

Crepe Man: Clearly you haven't done much travelling. (translation: you're a moron)

Woman: What?? (translation: listen up you lowly crepe man, who the hell do you think you are to speak to me this way??)

Crepe Man: Clearly you haven't done much travelling, because you would see how good we have it here! (translation: not only are you a moron, but you're also spoiled and ungrateful!)

Woman: Well, there will always be places that are worse off than we are, but I don't think that we really have democracy here either. Maybe it's democracy for some, but not for all.

At this point in their exchange, the crepe man handed me my piping hot crepe, and so I didn't hear the end of the conversation because I was too busy devouring my delicious snack. This is something that I will miss about France: the spontaneous political and philosophical conversations that are struck up all the time, between strangers and friends alike. This is definitely a country that places a premium on expressing one's opinions regardless of how unpopular they are, and being provocative and combattive. Given that I studied political science and international relations, and have always loved rigorous debates and arguments, my time here has been very satisfying.

In other news, I'm six weeks away from packing up and hoping on the train towards Cologne, and so I'm really trying to bunker down and do some serious trip planning. Since last week, I've managed to book my onward travel from Cologne to Berlin and Munich, a plane ticket from Budapest to Crete (Greece), and my final flight home to Toronto from London. I'm normally not very organized when it comes to travel planning (I used to go very light on research and just rely on my guidebook and word of mouth from travellers who I would meet on the road), but since I'm working on a limited budget (and unlike my previous trips, mostly through different parts of Asia, Europe is expensive and requires more advanced bookings if I want to get decent deals on tickets), and have a pretty ambitious route that I want to tackle, I've spent a lot more time doing research....how the hell did people travel before research on the internet was possible???

Parisian Canada Day

One of the best things about living in Paris is the amazing number of events that seem to always be going on. Having grown up in a relatively small town with a limited arts and cultural scene, being in Paris for the last year has been a little bit like being a kid in a candy shop. Museum exhibitions, concerts and music festivals, ballets, free lectures, a fantastic film culture, and a bazillion different festivals and celebrations going on at any given moment...there's always an excuse to turn something into an event, and so as a result, I've been spoilt, and I don't know how I'll ever be satisfied living in any city where the scene is less vibrant. Case in point, last week I managed to score tickets to go to see a special performance of the ballet Blanche Neige (Snow White) by Ballet Preljocaj at an outdoor theatre neptune at Chateau Versailles. Talk about a spectacular setting! The ballet was fantastic, very modern (not a point shoe in sight!) and definitely not meant for children. For you fashionistas, the costumes were designed by Jean-Paul Gaulthier...it was all very dominatrix and s&m bondage inspired. Best of all, there were fireworks!! I was pretty thrilled by the fireworks if only because it happened to be Canada Day, and I was feeling a little blue about missing out on whatever fun might have been going down at home. There's something pretty spectacular about seeing the night sky lit up with a display of fireworks, with Versailles in the background, and I just don't think that fireworks by Parliament or the National Art Gallery in Ottawa can compete...to top it off, on the metro ride home, I met a gaggle of fellow Canucks who had spent the night celebrating at The Moose, one of Paris' two Canadian bars. It was nice to share the metro with my fellow compatriots, who, even in their varying states of inebriation, managed to be unfailingly polite.

Elsewhere, this last week has been a week filled with very Parisian activities. I've been to the open air market on multiple occasions at Place des fetes, I've swapped existential crises with a friend while picnicking on the banks of a canal, I've waited out several frustrating metro delays (it doesn't get any more Parisian than that!), I've browsed the racks at the summer soldes, and I even managed to squeeze in a visit to the Pantheon to pay my respects to France's political/cultural/historical/intellectual patriarchs (and single matriarch....we can't forget about Marie Curie, the token woman who was deemed worthy enough to be buried alongside the likes of Voltaire, Rousseau and Maubert). Though it's definitely been a charming and idyllic way to pass my days off from work, there's a part of me that is missing a good Canadian summer filled with lazy late afternoon sessions on a sunny patio, barbeques, swimming and just chilling out with friends.