La vie est belle

It's been quite a while and there is a whole hell of a lot to share, I will try to stick with highlights. In the last couple weeks I've had the fortune of housing various visitors and meeting up with a number of people from Berkeley, which means I've had the opportunity to revisit some more touristy parts of Paris as well as explore new ones. Katie visited from Dublin two weekends ago and I had a great time showing her around. We did A LOT for three days but of course, it was very short all in all. The next week my friend Yael (from Berkeley) and her friend who I didn't know before, Stevie, visited from Bristol where they are both studying for the semester. The first few days I didn't see them much as I had to quarantine myself to work on my exposé for that Wednesday (the preparation for which was grueling and terrifying), and they happily did their own tour of Paris' attractions. I worked really hard on my exposé and was quite nervous about it, but by the night before I was feeling fine, ready for it to be done, and Allie came over and made us dinner and we even had a mini dance-party in our living room. The next morning my very first Sciences Po exposé went relatively smoothly, and I was able to talk as fast as I needed to to make it in the time limit and really did not feel very nervous once I was actually up there. A kid did ask me a question after that I didn't understand, which I was afraid of (seriously, I'm foreign, talk SLOWLY), but even that worked itself out somehow. The teacher seemed to appreciate my effort and besides some general criticisms said I did a good job. I must say that overall I was academically invigorated by the whole exposé process even though it had been difficult to find inspiration in my classes here, and I was really lucky because my topic, "the diplomacy of human rights," is related to what I study at home and in doing research I was reminded how much I care about this issue.
That same day I had three MUN people (who were supposed to be at a conference in the Hague) visiting Paris for the day who were hoping I could show them around (they had never been and so understandably wanted to do the big tourist attractions) and although I was a bit touristed-out and sleep-deprived, I felt like I'd been cooped-up for days in my apartment doing schoolwork so I was more than happy to run around with them and feel like I was doing something. We literally did Paris in a day, hours even, I'm surprised at how much we saw. And there were things I hadn't done before, like I figured out how to find this one bus I like in a different location and we stopped in St-Sulpice church (perhaps better-known, sadly, as the Da Vinci Code church), and also stopped for a café near the école militaire (which faces the Eiffel Tower) in an area I hadn't visited before. At around 4 o'Clock we were by the Louvre (I advised them not to go in if they didn't have time to avoid collapsing in awe, advice they heeded) and I sent them off to Montmartre so they could see the Sacre Coeur before catching their train in the same area, at which point I went home and collapsed on the couch in content exhaustion.
As if to compensate for all the schoolwork I did earlier in the week I spent the weekend doing absolutely nothing for school and instead spending time with Yael and Stevie who I really enjoyed talking to. Stevie left Thursday, though (they are both off now completing their European tour while on break from school), and on Friday Yael and I went to Versailles which I've been wanting to go to, and which was amazing besides the fact that it was a very cold day so the gardens were not quite as pleasant as they might have been. But this was yet another instance here where I've been so glad I took a 17th to beginning 20th century European history class at Berkeley (which had been a relatively random decision). Nothing like writing a whole midterm on the Sun King who "loved war too much" and changed the face of diplomacy in Europe and then seeing the bed where he was born. Pretty cool! In the evening we met up with our friend Pedro (also an MUN kid, technically) who I've known since Freshman year and who is studying in Germany for the semester (in Paris for the weekend with his program). We had a really nice time catching up over dinner and it was great to see another familiar face.
On Saturday we went to the Andy Warhol exhibit that is going on at the Grand Palais that both Yael and I had wanted to see. It was really cool and although I didn't know a whole lot about Warhol at first I felt like I had a pretty good sense of his life and work by the time I left. A lot of his mirror-image-type portraits that are normally found in different museums were put side-by-side which made me feel pretty lucky that I could see them there at the same time. I'm not sure about his idealization of celebrities and business executives, or his use of diamond dust in a few paintings, but it was very interesting nonetheless and definitely worthwhile. Yael left on Saturday night, officially ending my week of familiar faces! It was wonderful to have visitors here, especially because it's then you feel truly like a Paris resident and you realize you know much more than you think you do about where you are.
I decided Sunday during the day was finally the right time to get back to school stuff (considering I had a paper due the next day I hadn't started), but I still made time to meet up with people at a jazz club near Odéon for Song-My's birthday. The music was fantastic and I had a great time. Even though it is usually the case in Berkeley I've made the decision that while I'm here, school cannot be first priority. There's just too much to see and too much to do and I think I learn much more outside of school anyway. It is difficult to find a balance but I think I am getting there.

And in between the SCHOOL v. FUN seesaw there are so many simple pleasures to enjoy (which are always important to be aware of, but in Paris it's that much easier for some reason). Getting a "tradition" (like a baguette only better, in my opinion) from the bakery only to discover it's still warm, for example. Walking past the Notre Dame at night when there's no one there. Cold windy days that make you appreciate the warm spring-like ones. Discovering my favorite Lebanese place is still open at 12:30 at night. Grabbing the last copy of "Le monde" at the newspaper table...I've taken to reading this cover-to-cover at least twice a week and it's one of my favorite parts of living here. If the French want to claim it's the best newspaper in the world, that's fine with me.

On the menu for this next week is getting as much work done as possible...Melissa has friends coming on Tuesday night, and then it's our spring break and I'm off to Dublin, Bristol, and London, visiting a friend in each place. Life is good.