La Defense and Around Town

Trying to catch up in chronological order now. My batery charger for some strabge reason disappeared, well actually its not so mysterious because I lost it while moving in/out (one of the many times, I'm an expert on the matter since 2008). Anyways! That's why I have a lot of photos in my camera that can't be uploaded here yet... but I'll try filling the gaps with other people's pictures.

So Yuna was over here last weekend (can you see we're running a guest house? And this is nothing, we have like 34536475857 guests in June). We did so many things, those touristy often times boring annoying ones, but also cool ones. I did have to stay in lines for hours to get into the Louvre (yuck) and the Musee d'Orsay just to stand in crowds while the raging masses try to take pictures with the frames they can recognize. I'm a snob, and hate this kind of things.

Ok now to pretty things. The weather was beautiful, so great... so it was nice walking around, we had a great group of people over for Sunday brunch, we biked, ate ice cream, yummmm....

And another great thing... I finally went to La Defense! Had been wanting to for months, ever since Hjalte and his mom went and told us it was really impressive. We were just talking on the couch Saturday afternoon (Y, B and I) and then decided to head off there and explore what it was all about. We saw the sunset, walked on top of a cemetery and got a view from the arch all the way to the Arc de Triomphe.

Here are some of Yuna's pics from La Defense and her stay in general.


Night walk aroudn Sacre Coeur, a beautiful view.



Walking towards the Louvre, 30 degrees.




Those maddening crowds I mentioned. That was the Mona Lisa bien sur.



Yuna took this shot of the apartment which I really liked.


Bastille Metro.



The Arch of La Defese.



There's a cemetery right below this.



Yeahh

Peaceeee

Velib and Canal

Bridgette's friend Vannessa stayed at our place about three weeks ago, while I was having my hell week but I did manage to go out and have fun and celebrate during the weekend with them. We got Velib bikes and headed towards the canal Saint Martin, while there we encountered a block party, music feast, meet some Moroccan bloger revolutionaries (who also go to Sciences Po) and drank beers with them at Le Point Ephemere. No big deal.

B's photos.

Sun is shining..

"The boat" or Medecins Sans Frontieres building out our window

......out my window, on the streets, creeping into everyclassroom and the library, and guess what, I don't have to be there anymore! Yesterday I had my first 'vacation' day, and after 8am class went for delicious breakfast with Jess around school at this place called Eggs & Co... had amazing omelette with zucchini and jess got eggs benedict. Still haven't tried them but Bridgette has been talking about getting eggs benedict since.. I met her?

Then I just walked around through the river, the Louvre, les Halles, doing the tiny second-hand shop tour around rue Saint Denis that I used to do so much when I lived going up in that direction. Saw the nice Iranian guy who always gives me free stuff when I buy something from him... The goal was to find summer dresses because it's so hot I can't wear anything else, plus there's nothing better than a comfortable summer dress (except you have to be careful when you live in a city full of Marilyn Monroe ventilation things) but anyways... walekd for about 2-3 hours... then hit the Marais and thought of my dear Sofie so mcuh and how it would've been great to have her walking here with me and getting a falafel together..

I didn't get falafel but did get frozen yogurt (mmmm). Finally, I went to the camera stores I've been wanting to go for aaages in Blvd. Beaumarchais and left 3 films to be developed. I've been wanting to get a new, smaller, lighter 35mm camera and the guy was really nice and help me out and joked with me (basically he was laughing at me because of the expressions I invented in French). I have to fix my Yashica first if I inted to buy something else, and also, I think my next big purchase is going to be a video camera. For a couple of months I've been really wanting to get one to play around with it, make short films ar whatever... so I'l save for that and I think any other cameras will wait.

I've been getting some concerns about my potential vegetarianism... Hahaha. I don't think it's happening soon. Not when I'm goign back home in 3 MONTHS! (Ok it's not that soon, I thought I was gonna be surpirsed when I checked today's date...). I can't not participate in my mom's amazing sunday bbq's so the issue will be kept in a closet for now.

I have so many films in my computer to see, and so many books to read!! This is exciting, I feel like my parisian life just took a really god turn now that its really spring and I can go out and sit somewhere and read in the sun. Exciting! I'm going to an amazing bookstore today, le Monte-en-l'air to get a book I we used for a project on street art. I really liked it so I'll get it to have some French reading to do. Also I've been wanting to check this place out for a while, they have great openings, a gallery space, and really good book selection I've read!




After that, Bridgette and I are having a picnic lunch with Noemie in the Canal Saint Martin. Oh! And after that, Yuna is arriving and staying with me for the weekend here in Paris, so I'll probably be doing some of the museums and sightseeing I haven't done yet.

C'est dur la vie! Not.

Canal Saint Martin

So close!

Now this post is gonna start really boring but hopefully it will get better once I spit out my horrible first thoughts.

Cleaning, sanitizing my mind from confusing ideas... in one week or two weeks I have tried to "ARGUE":

-that the effects of France's reintegration into the NATO military structures are mostly symbolic..
-that power in our society works in a way that it enforces compulsory heterosexuality and leaves no space for other "subversive" sexual identities
-that the internet and social networking present a "new look" for surveillance and we should be careful about "cyber-utopian" attitudes
-that we live in a 'society of the spectacle' where images mediate our social relations
-that there is a social movement for the democratization of art in paris but the relationship between the individual artists and the collective movement is an ambiguous one
-i don't even remember any more

So much fighting, so much fighting! They make us fight and argue and debate and contest so much in school, I don't wanna fight anymore I just wanna love the world, why is that so hard.

:)

Seriously after seeing what all these people "argue" and "claim" or "suggest" I can't even think for myself anymore. I can't think for myself anymore but I can write papers like a robot and make them sound coherent. What does that say about me, or actually, what does that say about this education system.

Coffee after coffee.. ah how it kept me alive! We found a great Monoprix coffee from Cosa Rica that was my saviour during my late night adventures. I moved the table of the living room by my window in my room and sat there fore hours and hours, numbed in front of a screen. NOW i'M ALMOST OVER!

ohhhhhhhh What am I gonna do when I don't have anything DUE?

I'm probably gonna have a nervous breakdown because I'm not PRODUCING and have forgotten what sort of things you do when you have free time... read a bok perhaps? Go for a walk for no reason? Take pictures? I don't know there are so many possibilities but who knows if I'll do anything of that or just crash.

School is getting close to an end, one more months but that also means the end of Paris! No way, I can't believe I just wasted so many weeks writing assignments. Most of the topics I chose were interesting, but I have such limited time for each that I ended up hating the those expressions, the way in which the language I used started shaping my state of mind, that permanent headache, the "I just want to close my eyes for 5 min but I'm at the library" feeling.... BUT NOW IM SO CLOSE!

Just one more paper and one more presentation. Monday. IT'S ON. Both in French. -------------------------------

Yeah, I'm not thinking about that right now, I'm just enjoying the semi-freedom.

And this weekend I'm going to Lille to be in a nice ouse with nice people who are nice with me and help me wih french and cook me good food. And Im just gonna write my paper nice and chill and thats gonna be it (until finals haha how depressing).

I don't care about finals, I'm happy and I'm taking a train to the north in 2 hours. I'll write more happy things when I'm happy there.

:)

evidence

:'(

panic mode. cant even use pacs lock or anything. was having fun self-pitying myself but it stoppped now. have a paper to write in one day, not started writing, finish it an instead of celebrating have to write two more, and make an expose on the same week. so much panic i wanna cry. MOMMY! it's like when i finished my third final in 25 hours in UBC and did so bad in the last one cause i hadn't slept so i couldn't see the papaer i was writing my art history paper on. the i called my mom and cried, haha ok now its a little funny, but then i return to looking at myself in the library and its not funny, its pathetic. i have to go buy some red bull now or something, though i know its nowt gonna work due to my incredible abilities to fall asleep anytime, anywhere... like in class today, front row. yes. yesterday as well, its a little embarassing now im just talking to myself and avoiding going back to reading ciao.

its so obvious im craving for sympathy! yuck!!
peace out.
mile.

Weekend

This weekend has been so great. I haven't posted anything since that amazing night I saw a very partiular view of Paris for a couple of hours in the night, and etc., I've been wanting to write many things and haven't gotten around to it but now I just have this urge to share how this wekend has felts like chez moi, rue Saint Sabin.

Bridgette and Vanessa (visiting from Vancouver) went to Barcelona for the weekend (that's the kind of thing you do when you like in Paris, yeah!) and so I had the whole place for myself. I imagined since I would be alone here with no distractions, that I would get alll those piles of homework/assignments done, but oh, what happens first thing Saturday? Sam, Jessica and I decided to go for lunch at Chez Jeannette in my old neighborhood.

Chez Jeannette, day or night, never lets me down, love that place. I had a burger, hence meat, for the first time in quite a long time, and it was so meay I just couldn't do it in the end. I've kind of forgotten how to eat meat an though it was good, I can finally after a long time in limbo ('involuntaryly vegetarian though kind of voluntarily') see myself going fully vegetarian. Problem is, yeah it would be so easy to be a vegetarian here, but what happens when I go back to Costa Rica and all my favorite home dishes have chicken/fish! I haven't decided if I'll really commit to it.

Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis

Anyway, going back to my Saturday story. After the meal we took the metro to Chemin Vert, on our way to the Bibliotheque Historique, a library which has a great reading room overlooking a beautiful courtyard in the middle of Le Marais. It's a great place, Sam told me about it a few days ago and I'm so glad we went cause it's a beautiful room with great lighting and comfy chairs and kind of Harry Potterish.

Oh! On our way to this place we passed by an art gallery and realized that some of the pictures on the walls were by Malick Sidibe! He's a photographer from Mali.. I had run into his work randomly online, and he has a great picture Sam had put in his Tumblr called Nuit de Noel The picture was there, i was so excited to see it. I bought a little booklet of his latest work, a series on "vues de dos", back view portraits.

Nuit de Noel. Malick Sibide

We also got orange juice + cakes at the patio of the Institut Suedois. I think every single Parisian was outside of their houses yesterday, either in a terrace or a park enjoying the beautiful weather. Insitut Suedois, win, deifnitely coming back for more juice, soup, pastries and other great things they had in the cute little cafe.




Saturday night after our study session I decided to go thrift shopping for summer dresses (it was 24C yesterday!!!). had no luck, but did score a froen yogurt on the way back home, YES! Not so great as the Granville/Broadway little place I would go at least once a week (pain in my pocket cause its so expensive), but eating frozen yogurt under the sun, walking Le Marais... ah, amazing!

Came back home and then chatted for more than an hour with my brotehr cause yesterday his band was playing in the opening of the new CR National Stadium!! It was a huge deal, the biggest bands in CR plsaying and they won a concert to open the Rock section of the day of concerts. I really wished I could've seen them but from the reviews I've seen online and Facebook love I can see they rocked it :)

Now, Sunday afternoon, I'm just chilling with a cup of coffee after having a great meal and shower. Oh and it was raining just a bit ago, but in a very relaxing and beautiful way (as in makes-me-wanna-get-cozy-in-the-couch-and-put-a-movie-on way). Life is very good, can't complain!!